| Sumario: | The costs and effectiveness of the currently used counseling and testing procedure for the immunodeficiency virus (HIV) antibody were compared to a streamlined procedure made possible by new, more rapid screening tests. The rapid procedure was found to be more cost-effective than the current procedure when test-positive clients were given preliminary screening test results. As more than 90 percent of the clients in most clinics test negative, the rapid counseling and testing procedure allows most clients to be counseled and tested and to receive their results and posttest counseling in a single visit. However, when the aim of HIV counseling and testing is to concentrate only on infected individuals, the rapid counseling and testing procedure is not more cost-effective than the current procedure if information about a positive result from the rapid screening test is not given to clients at the initial visit before a confirmatory test is performed.
|
|---|