Publications by authors named "Daniel Pungu"
Article Synopsis
- Tanzania has a 5% HIV prevalence but less than half of people know their status, and only 75% of those diagnosed are receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART).
- Traditional healers often serve as the first point of contact for health care, yet their role in HIV care and interactions with people living with HIV (PLWH) is not well understood.
- A qualitative study in Mwanza revealed that traditional healers engage with PLWH throughout the care continuum, sometimes aiding in testing but also risking delays and ART nonadherence through the promotion of traditional remedies.
Collaborations with traditional healers have been proposed to improve HIV testing uptake. We hypothesized that healer-delivered HIV testing would improve HIV testing uptake, compared with referral to clinic-based HIV testing. We conducted a cluster randomized trial to determine the effectiveness of traditional healers delivering counseling and HIV testing in Mwanza, Tanzania (ClinicalTrials.
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