HTS Policy in Managing HIV/AIDS

Running head: HTS POLICY IN MANAGING HIV/AIDS
HTS POLICY IN MANAGING HIV/AIDS
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1HTS POLICY IN MANAGING HIV/AIDS
Background:
South Africa has witnessed the chief and greatest high-profile HIV prevalent in the whole
world, with an expected 7.2 million individuals existing with HIV in the year of 2017. South
Africa accounts for the third of all different HIV infections in southern portion of Africa. It
was found that, in the year of 2017, there existed 270,000 cases of new HIV infections and
out of which 110,000 South Africans deceased because of AIDS-related sicknesses. South
Africa developed a major antiretroviral treatment (ART) programme among all the countries
and the efforts have been essentially sponsored from its particular national assets. In 2015,
the country itself was financing more than $1.34 billion yearly to course its HIV programmes
Zuma et al., 2016).
The National Strategic Plan on HIV, STIs and TB, 2012-2016 (NSP) comprise the decrease
of the novel HIV infections around 50 per cent consuming combination inhibition methods
and introduction of around 80 per cent of qualified patients on ART, with 70 per cent of
retainon treatment (Daly, Spicer & Willan, 2016).
Introduction:
The HIV epidemic had a distressing result on the population of South Africa. The
virus is found to be transferred via body fluid contact and it progresses to AIDS which effects
the immune system of the infected person. This disease is effects the person, chief to their
lives. The current condition of the disease is making it a greater danger for South Africa’s
economic growth. An estimation of 5.7 million people or around 12% of South Africa is
affected by the infection.The effect of the epidemic can be observed most severely by the
theatrical change in South Africa’s death rates(Johnson et al., 2015).
HIV counselling and testing (HCT) is nowadays denoted as HIV testing services (HTS) to
hold the full array of facilities that must be delivered in collaboration with HIV testing. The

2HTS POLICY IN MANAGING HIV/AIDS
services include pre and post-test counselling, association with prevention, treatment and care
providing related to HIV (Onoya et al., 2016).The Government of South Africa has boarded
on efforts to strengthen HTS and reinforce its excellence at all healthcare facilities and non-
healthcare locations.Focusing on 2014 data, itis observed that around 92.3% of the South
African population has a knowledge about HTS and about 66.2 % had used it in the previous
years.The National Strategic Plan on HIV aims to induce reduction in generation of new
infections by 50% using combination of different measures (Rosenberg et al., 2016).
Thesis Statement: Taking insights on the above discussed urgency and alarming state of
HIV disease burden in the country of South Africa, this paper aims to extensively evaluate
the policy components of HTS concerning its efficacy, challenges, evaluation and
monitoring for the purpose of HIV/AIDS mitigation in the nation.
Aims and objective of the policy:
The aim of the HTS policy is to identify people who are existing with the HIV
infection timely using necessities of worth testing for everyone which includes children, adult
and elderly population. It focuses on collaborating the people with the prevention measures,
proper treatment and support system that is required. The HTS policy contributes in reduction
of the new infection of HIV and helps the people to live a quality life. In order to achieve its
goal, the HTS policy ensures to identify HIV positive people at a very early stage and
connect them to proper care services and treatment andlink the HIV negative people to
prevention facilities (Meehan et al., 2018).
The objective of HTS policy are as follows:
 To ensure guidance for HTS request and acceptance of helpful behaviour.
 To provide delivery of proper, high feature service without any discrimination.

3HTS POLICY IN MANAGING HIV/AIDS
 To make the healthcare system stronger and better to deliver targeted and useful
HTS.in communities to increase the access, utilization and major coverage of the
policy.
 To guide proper monitoring and assessment of the policy (Venteret al., 2017).
Principle outlining the policy:
It delivers regulation on providing HTS;high worth serviceswithout discrimination to all the
citizensof South Africafocusing on the 5Cs (Consent, Counselling, Confidentiality, Correct
results and Connection to care) as commended by WHO (World Health
Organization,2015).And according to the principle every individual must have the right to get
access of the HTS without any discrimination on the bases of race, ethnicity, gender and
socioeconomic status (Flynn et al., 2017). People should consent to the policy and if the
patient is not in a state, then the members of the family can provide permission on behalf of
the person.The information, knowledge, education and communication regarding HIV should
be accurate and clear and should be provided to every people of the country. The
confidentiality of every individual who is being provided with HTS should be maintained and
it can only be broken in case of consent and for the wellbeing of the person. The test reports
of the HIV positive patient should be double checked and no false or incorrect data should be
provided. The policy also relies on the principle where it states that every individual who is
getting counselling and treatment for HIV must have the correct link to proper healthcare
facilities (Mavedzenge et al., 2016). The HTS also considers health promotion and quality
treatments for children, as a necessity, to the best of interests and concerns which is in
compliance to the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund’s (UNICEF) guiding principle
of fulfilling a generation free from HIV/AIDS for the world’s children (United Nations
Children’s Emergency Fund, 2019). Establishing an end to the menace of HIV/AIDS in the
country of South Africa, is lastly, the foundational guiding principle for the HTS policy,