Maintaining HIV care during the COVID-19 pandemic

First, implementation of quarantine, social distancing, and community containment measures have reduced access to routine HIV testing, which challenges completion of UNAIDS' first 90-90-90 target globally, that 90% of all people living with HIV will know their HIV status. HIV testing is the vital first step towards initiation into the HIV care continuum.3 Even with availability of HIV self-testing kits in some areas,4 testing remains a big challenge in settings with scarce access to these kits. Therefore, increased efforts are needed to augment access and to facilitate testing.