The use of community health workers to conduct voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) for HIV has rapidly become a worldwide solution to healthcare worker shortages, particularly within resource-limited settings. Training community health workers (also called lay counsellors) makes more efficient use of human resources and quickly increases public health capacity by delegating health care tasks that are usually performed by highly trained health professionals to those with less – but adequate - training.

South Africa faces a tremendous shortage of health workers with only 393 nurses and 74 doctors for every 100,000 people, with substantial shortages existing in rural areas. In addition, South Africa has one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS in the world, with over 1,200 AIDS-related deaths per day.

Quality, consistent and effective use of community health workers has been approved and recommended by global health bodies including the World Health Organization (WHO), the US President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and the Joint United Nations Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS). By employing community health workers to conduct VCT, Kaelo is empowered to reach more clients, employees and their families with testing and access to life-saving treatment and support. The more South Africans are empowered to know their status and access treatment, the more lives will be saved.

For more information, read Global Guidelines on Task Shifting available at:
http://www.who.int/healthsystems/TTR-TaskShifting.pdf.