How COVID-19 is Impacting HIV Testing Services in Rural Uganda

Dr. Radhika Sundararajan, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, and her colleagues describe the impact of COVID-19 on HIV testing uptake in rural Southwestern Uganda in a new publication in AIDS and Behavior. This qualitative study presents data from in-depth interviews on how country-wide restrictions have created significant barriers to HIV testing services, and how COVID-related stigma creates reluctance to visit facilities for HIV testing.

"Like much of sub-Saharan Africa, our study region is medically pluralistic, where people seek care from both formal and informal healthcare resources ... The qualitative data presented here illustrate how COVID-19 is inhibiting access to and uptake of HIV testing services among rural Ugandans by underscoring existing structural barriers (lack of transportation, poverty, location of biomedical resources), and through the influence of new, stigmatizing beliefs surrounding COVID-19."

Read the full article here.