Recently, Professor Li Xianhong's team published an original work entitled Impact of providing free HIV self-testing kits on frequency of testing among men who have sex with men and their sexual partners in China: A randomized controlled trial.(IF:10.5) Doctoral student Zhang Ci is the first author, professor Li Xianhong is the corresponding author, and Xiangya School of Nursing, Central South University is the first communication unit of this paper.  Prof Deborah Koniak-Griffin, Prof Han-Chu Qian, Prof Lloyd A. Goldsamt, Prof Hong-Hung Wang and Prof Mary-Lynn Brecht are co-authors. In this study, a randomized controlled study was designed to explore the effect of providing HIV self-testing reagents (HIVST) on improving the HIV detection frequency of men who have sex with men (MSM) and their sexual partners, and expanding the HIV detection coverage rate among MSM population.

The public health significance of this study lies in the following: firstly, to promote the application of HIV self-test reagents, which can increase the frequency of HIV testing and promote the MSM population to meet the requirement of “testing every 3-6 months for high-risk populations”; secondly, HIV testing is the most critical step of the 90-90-90 International AIDS prevention and control goal(90-90-90 target, that is, 90% of infected people receive HIV testing and diagnosis, 90% of confirmed HIV infections receive antiretroviral treatment, and 90% of the treated people achieve HIV Inhibition status). MSM can expand the coverage of HIV testing and promote the realization of the 90-90-90 goal by transmitting HIV self-test reagents through sexual networks; finally, to ensure that HIV self-test reagent is provided and promoted in MSM population through social network, which is simple, safe, effective and feasible.

This research was funded by the Innovation Driven Project of Central South University (2018CX036), NIH Project (Fogarty International; NO. D43 TW009579) and the Independent Exploration and Innovation Project of Central South University (2018zzts885).

Link to the paper: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33035206/