President Museveni to officially launch easy HIV-self testing kit

By Ben Musanje

7^th May 2024

President Yoweri Museveni is this week set to conduct a national launch of the new easy HIV-self testing kit dubbed “Check Now” aimed at bridging the testing gap in the country.

This has been disclosed at Loudel Tower in Kampala on Tuesday by the Ministry of Health during a media orientation meeting about the kit that was developed by global medical device company Abbott and tested for effectiveness by the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI).

The kit which was last year piloted in seven universities with the plan to have young people that were involved in the study introduce the testing method to their peers, is expected to officially be launched by President Museveni at Kololo Independence ground on Thursday 9^th May, 2024.

According to the Health Ministry, they are planning to hold a national HIV self testing scale-up campaign in 12 months at a free cost in key and underserved populations like fishermen and women, and commercial sex workers among others. This will leverage facility and community-based peers including Village Health Teams and Community Health Extension Workers.

The Senior Program Officer for HIV Testing Services in the AIDS Control Program (ACP) at the Ministry of Health, Dr. Christine Katusiime says they estimate a target population of over 5 million people to be reached out with self testing services in 1,488 Sub counties, 190 Town Councils, 7,553 parishes and 58,187 villages and at 30 landing sites on different lakes.

She says that they are targeting people between the age of 15 and 24 and they shall prioritize one million motorcycle riders among which 75% are in Kampala and 120,000 to 150,000 bicycle riders.

Andrew Bunya, the Commercial Operations Manager at Life-Care Diagnostics Limited says that this is a blood test kit that requires for the end user to use it at once by either assistant testing or no assistant testing models and has guides in four languages of Luganda, Runyakitara, Luo and English.

He says they are intending to sell the kit at 10,000shs each to the public after this 12 months national HIV self testing scale-up campaign.

Dr Milly Nakawuka, from the HIV Care and Treatment department in Aids Control Program at the Ministry of Health says the kit once acquired and used should immediately be returned to health workers.

Data from the 2020 Uganda Population-Based HIV Impact Assessment indicated that 11 percent of persons living with HIV in Uganda were unaware of their HIV status, since then program data indicate improvements in the cascades in.