Ontario Guidelines for Providers Offering HIV Testing
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Ontario is committed to making new HIV infections rare and ensuring all people living with HIV are able to lead long, full lives free of stigma and discrimination.
To achieve those goals, the Ministry of Health actively supports and promotes HIV testing. Ontario’s HIV testing initiatives aim to:
- Diagnose people infected with HIV as early as possible and link them to treatment and other services to help them lead long, healthy lives and prevent HIV transmission.
- Identify people at high risk of acquiring HIV and connect them with prevention services, including pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) and other prevention and harm reduction resources.
These guidelines were developed specifically for Ontario to help reach the undiagnosed. They are designed to make providers aware of:
- recent advances in HIV testing technology
- symptoms of both acute and chronic HIV, which are often missed in routine care
- factors that contribute to HIV risk
- their important role in assessing risk, actively offering testing to people at risk, and reducing stigma that may keep people from being tested
Watch & Learn: PHO Rounds
In this video, Patrick O’Byrne NP PhD and Dr. Austin Zygmunt explain the need for new HIV testing guidelines in Ontario and the four-pronged approach taken by the Ontario Guidelines for Providers Offering HIV Testing:
- Finding new/recent infections
- Finding chronic infections
- Offering testing to at-risk members of populations with higher rates of HIV
- Identifying other care scenarios where testing is advisable