ARFH is one of the Sub-Recipients to FHI 360 under the Global Fund HIV New Funding Model Extension implementation. As part of the global efforts in the fight against HIV, ARFH was given the mandate to conduct community testing for Pregnant Women as well as Men and Women from vulnerable groups among the general population. The project is being implemented in 46 LGAs across the Global Fund 5 (Preventing Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV) PMTCT priority States of Akwa-Ibom, Imo, Kaduna, Oyo and Rivers. Though the grant commenced in January, 2018, formal grant agreement between ARFH and FHI 360 was signed on 4th March, 2018.
ARFH is working directly with Counsellor Testers who are responsible for conducting the HIV Testing Services in various communities under the supervision and mentorship of ARFH state team who have been assigned to LGAs in cluster to provide sufficient guidance, mentorship and supervision. To kick start the extension phase, ARFH recruited 138 Counsellor Testers from the 46 local government areas in the 5 priority states assigned to same LGAs for implementation and conducted an HIV Testing Services training and orientation exercise for them.
The Counsellor Testers were taught various strategies to ensure they reach their targets and work efficiently with local actors such as Traditional Birth Attendants to identify and test vulnerable groups in target communities, to train them on the use of various MIS tools and the reporting procedure for documenting their results.
