A new report published by the International Labour Organization (ILO), VCT@WORK: voluntary confidential counselling and HIV testing for workers, shows that the VCT@WORK campaign has reached more than 6 million workers with HIV information, tested more than 4 million and referred more than 100 000 to HIV treatment. Launched in 2013, VCT@WORK is an initiative of ILO, UNAIDS and partners to scale up HIV testing, specifically in the workplace.
The VCT@WORK initiative has had particular success in reaching men, a group that is hard to reach with HIV services, with men accounting for more than 60% of people tested for HIV and 80% of people referred to treatment through the initiative in 2016.
The campaign reached 18 countries in 2016, and focuses on populations at higher risk of HIV infection, including workers in the mining, transport, construction, health and tourism sectors. Mobile and migrant workers are also often the focus of VCT@WORK HIV testing programmes, and in concentrated epidemics the focus is on key populations.
Workers in Kenya are among the people to have been reached by the campaign. A partnership between ILO, the Central Organization of Trade Unions in Kenya and other partners has enabled trucker drivers to access HIV testing and counselling services along the Mombasa to Busia transport corridor. Truck drivers face challenges in accessing health services, owing to their mobility and irregular schedules, so being able to test for HIV while at work will allow many more to find out their HIV status in order to start life-saving treatment or to access HIV prevention services to keep them HIV-free.
Hair and beauty salon workers in Kenya and workers in the informal economy are among the 74 000 people who have taken HIV tests through the VCT@WORK initiative in the country, with more than 1000 people who found out their HIV-positive status being linked to treatment.
Coal India Limited is the largest public sector coal company in India, with around 314 000 employees plus a large number of contractual workers. A long-standing partner of ILO’s HIV workplace programme, it is now a lead company in the VCT@WORK initiative in the country. Its HIV strategy, developed as part of VCT@WORK, includes training master trainers and peer educators to promote voluntary HIV testing, engaging unions to mobilize workers to seek HIV information and testing and covering contractual workers and their families in the strategy. More than 36 000 workers, dependents and contractual workers have accessed HIV counselling and testing services under the initiative.
These and other VCT@WORK programmes around the world are helping build momentum towards meeting the 90–90–90 targets, whereby, by 2020, 90% of people living with HIV know their HIV status, 90% of people who know their HIV-positive status are accessing treatment and 90% of people on treatment have suppressed viral loads.
