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Acceptability and usability of oral fluid-based HIV self-testing among female sex workers and men who have sex with men in Morocco

BACKGROUND: In 2020, almost 20% of people living with HIV (PLHIV) in Morocco are still unaware of their HIV status. Under these circumstances, HIV self-test (HIVST) can be an efficient additional tool for improving the testing rates in Morocco and reaching the first objective of the UNAIDS 95–95-95...

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Autores principales: Ben Moussa, Amal, Belhiba, Ouijdane, Hajouji, Fatima Zahra, El Kettani, Amina, Youbi, Mohammed, Alami, Kamal, El Omari, Boutaina, Ouarsas, Lahoucine, Karkouri, Mehdi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9720927/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36471285
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-14632-5
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author Ben Moussa, Amal
Belhiba, Ouijdane
Hajouji, Fatima Zahra
El Kettani, Amina
Youbi, Mohammed
Alami, Kamal
El Omari, Boutaina
Ouarsas, Lahoucine
Karkouri, Mehdi
author_facet Ben Moussa, Amal
Belhiba, Ouijdane
Hajouji, Fatima Zahra
El Kettani, Amina
Youbi, Mohammed
Alami, Kamal
El Omari, Boutaina
Ouarsas, Lahoucine
Karkouri, Mehdi
author_sort Ben Moussa, Amal
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: In 2020, almost 20% of people living with HIV (PLHIV) in Morocco are still unaware of their HIV status. Under these circumstances, HIV self-test (HIVST) can be an efficient additional tool for improving the testing rates in Morocco and reaching the first objective of the UNAIDS 95–95-95 goal. ALCS, a Community-based organization, involved in HIV Testing since 1992, and the Ministry of Health of Morocco conducted, a study on the acceptability and usability of HIVST among Female sex workers (FSW) and MSM (men who have sex with men), using a salivary rapid test. To our knowledge, this is the first study in Morocco exploring these parameters. METHODS: We conducted a pilot study on the usability of the OraQuick HIV-1/2 salivary self-test among MSM and FSW visiting the ALCS centers for standard HIV rapid testing in five Moroccan cities. Participants chose whether or not to be assisted by lay provider HIV testing. The counselors sampled them to perform a standard rapid test and then invited them to a private room to perform the HIV self-test simultaneously. In addition, a questionnaire was administered to collect socio-demographic data and to assess their opinion about the usability of the salivary HIVST. RESULTS: Our study was carried out for 5 months and included 492 participants (257 MSM and 233 FSW). The average age of the participants was 29 years among MSM vs 34 years among FSW. The FSW have a lower educational level, 28,8% of them are Illiterate vs. 6,1% of the MSM. Only 18% of participants were aware of the existence of the HIVST, nevertheless, we recorded a very high rate of acceptability (90,6%) of the HIVST. Performing the HIVST was deemed very easy for 92,2% of MSM versus 80,6% of FSW. Although it was found very difficult for six participants, including five FSW, 4 of them could not read or write. Overall, the study registered a high HIV positivity rate (3,8%) and 100% of concordance between HIVST participants’ interpretation and standard HIV testing performed by ALCS lay provider HIV testing. CONCLUSION: Our study shows very high acceptability of HIVST among FSWs and MSM in Morocco, HIV self-testing is still unknown by key populations in Morocco, and the low level of education of FSWs may be a barrier to the use of this test, but with the proposed assistance and adapted demonstration tools, the HIV self-testing will certainly improve access to testing in Morocco.
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spelling pubmed-97209272022-12-06 Acceptability and usability of oral fluid-based HIV self-testing among female sex workers and men who have sex with men in Morocco Ben Moussa, Amal Belhiba, Ouijdane Hajouji, Fatima Zahra El Kettani, Amina Youbi, Mohammed Alami, Kamal El Omari, Boutaina Ouarsas, Lahoucine Karkouri, Mehdi BMC Public Health Research BACKGROUND: In 2020, almost 20% of people living with HIV (PLHIV) in Morocco are still unaware of their HIV status. Under these circumstances, HIV self-test (HIVST) can be an efficient additional tool for improving the testing rates in Morocco and reaching the first objective of the UNAIDS 95–95-95 goal. ALCS, a Community-based organization, involved in HIV Testing since 1992, and the Ministry of Health of Morocco conducted, a study on the acceptability and usability of HIVST among Female sex workers (FSW) and MSM (men who have sex with men), using a salivary rapid test. To our knowledge, this is the first study in Morocco exploring these parameters. METHODS: We conducted a pilot study on the usability of the OraQuick HIV-1/2 salivary self-test among MSM and FSW visiting the ALCS centers for standard HIV rapid testing in five Moroccan cities. Participants chose whether or not to be assisted by lay provider HIV testing. The counselors sampled them to perform a standard rapid test and then invited them to a private room to perform the HIV self-test simultaneously. In addition, a questionnaire was administered to collect socio-demographic data and to assess their opinion about the usability of the salivary HIVST. RESULTS: Our study was carried out for 5 months and included 492 participants (257 MSM and 233 FSW). The average age of the participants was 29 years among MSM vs 34 years among FSW. The FSW have a lower educational level, 28,8% of them are Illiterate vs. 6,1% of the MSM. Only 18% of participants were aware of the existence of the HIVST, nevertheless, we recorded a very high rate of acceptability (90,6%) of the HIVST. Performing the HIVST was deemed very easy for 92,2% of MSM versus 80,6% of FSW. Although it was found very difficult for six participants, including five FSW, 4 of them could not read or write. Overall, the study registered a high HIV positivity rate (3,8%) and 100% of concordance between HIVST participants’ interpretation and standard HIV testing performed by ALCS lay provider HIV testing. CONCLUSION: Our study shows very high acceptability of HIVST among FSWs and MSM in Morocco, HIV self-testing is still unknown by key populations in Morocco, and the low level of education of FSWs may be a barrier to the use of this test, but with the proposed assistance and adapted demonstration tools, the HIV self-testing will certainly improve access to testing in Morocco. BioMed Central 2022-12-05 /pmc/articles/PMC9720927/ /pubmed/36471285 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-14632-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Ben Moussa, Amal
Belhiba, Ouijdane
Hajouji, Fatima Zahra
El Kettani, Amina
Youbi, Mohammed
Alami, Kamal
El Omari, Boutaina
Ouarsas, Lahoucine
Karkouri, Mehdi
Acceptability and usability of oral fluid-based HIV self-testing among female sex workers and men who have sex with men in Morocco
title Acceptability and usability of oral fluid-based HIV self-testing among female sex workers and men who have sex with men in Morocco
title_full Acceptability and usability of oral fluid-based HIV self-testing among female sex workers and men who have sex with men in Morocco
title_fullStr Acceptability and usability of oral fluid-based HIV self-testing among female sex workers and men who have sex with men in Morocco
title_full_unstemmed Acceptability and usability of oral fluid-based HIV self-testing among female sex workers and men who have sex with men in Morocco
title_short Acceptability and usability of oral fluid-based HIV self-testing among female sex workers and men who have sex with men in Morocco
title_sort acceptability and usability of oral fluid-based hiv self-testing among female sex workers and men who have sex with men in morocco
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9720927/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36471285
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-14632-5
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