How to effectively detect and manage people living with HIV/AIDS in China: Establishment of a community-based model

This study explored a novel systemic community-based model for detecting and manag-ing people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were used in this study. A quantitative questionnaire investigation was conducted in a sample of 1192 subjects which were randomly selected from two areas with high HIV prevalence, Xiangfan City and Shiyan City of Hubei Province, China. Twenty-two medical and health service staffs were inter-viewed by semi-structured questionnaire focusing on awareness, status, problems, and suggestions about community-based Voluntary Counseling and Testing and Provider Initiated Testing and Coun-seling (VCT/PITC). And they were organized to discuss about the aforementioned issues in Xiangfan City and Shiyan City, respectively. Our results showed that the accessibility and availability of the general VCT/PITC were bad. About 28.3% had known and only 4.9% had made use of VCT/PITC. Developing community-based VCT/PITC had some special advantages that can overcome some ex-isting problems to remedy the aforementioned defects. We are led to conclude that, to maximize the availability and uptake rate of the VCT/PITC, we plan to detect PLWHA by developing the commu-nity-based VCT/PITC through 4 paths. Then we establish the community HIV health care center con-stituted of 8 sectors to provide an overall management. Thus, we can effectively detect and manage the PLWHA with a new systemic community-based model.