Attracting Youth to Voluntary Counseling and Testing Services in Uganda

Open since 1995, NTIHC is a drop-in center that offers free reproductive health services to youth, including diagnosis and treatment of STIs, family planning, pregnancy testing and counseling, and antenatal and postnatal care. In 2002, NTIHC began offering VCT two days per week and expanded its facility to provide waiting and counseling space for youth seeking VCT. AIC provided initial technical and material support to NTIHC, HIV voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) is a valuable way to identify people who need HIV care and has been shown to lead to the adoption of safer sexual behaviors among some groups of adults (Voluntary HIV Counseling and Testing Efficacy Study Group 2000). Little is known, however, about the use of VCT by youth, a group that comprises more than half of those newly infected with HIV. An exploratory study conducted in Nairobi, Kenya, and Kampala and Masaka in Uganda revealed that youth want information, confidentiality, low-cost HIV testing, and friendly, professional counseling (Horizons 2001). Two facilities in Kampala, Uganda, the AIDS Information Center (AIC) and Naguru Teenage Information and Health Center (NTIHC), responded to these needs by implementing new youth-oriented strategies to increase VCT utilization and satisfaction with services among young people.