Three-year outcome of rapid HIV testing at public health centers in Seoul, Republic of Korea: a short report

ABSTRACT

Before 2014, the only test used for anonymous voluntary human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) screening at public health centers (PHCs) in the Republic of Korea was an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), which takes around 3 days to obtain results. In 2014, to encourage voluntary anonymous HIV screening tests, the Seoul Metropolitan Government adopted a rapid HIV screening test at PHCs. The rapid HIV screening test was introduced at four PHCs in 2014 and all 25 PHCs after 2015. We compared the numbers of HIV screening tests and confirmed positive individuals before and after introduction of the rapid HIV screening test. In 2012–2013, before the introduction of rapid HIV screening test, an average of 330 HIV screening tests were performed monthly (355 in 2012 and 305 in 2013) and 69 individuals were confirmed to have HIV in 2012 and 93 in 2013. After the introduction of the rapid HIV screening test, anonymous voluntary HIV screening increased to a monthly average of 447 tests in 2014, 2099 in 2015, and 2409 in 2016. These identified 38 new cases in 2014, 116 in 2015, and 143 in 2016. Adoption of the rapid HIV screening test has increased the number of HIV screening tests and confirmed cases.

KEYWORDS:

• HIV
• rapid HIV test
• anonymous HIV test

Acknowledgement

We thank the researchers and staff of the Seoul Metropolitan Government and Seoul Center for Infectious Disease Control and Prevention.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study used outcome of conducted project financially supported by the Division of Life and Health of Seoul Metropolitan Government. But the financial supporter had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or writing of the manuscript. The content and view of this study is opinions of the authors, which may different to those of the Seoul Metropolitan Government.