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Background Community-based voluntary counselling and testing contributes to early HIV diagnoses among key populations. Testing data from such decentralized services is however often not standardized nor linked to national surveillance systems. This study aimed to support the integration of community testing data into respective national surveillance and monitoring and evaluation systems for those infections. We present results from three national pilots, focused on improved data collection and transfer. Methods Within the Joint Action INTEGRATE different pilot activities were planned and implemented according to the local context. In Slovakia, standardised data collection tools were implemented in three community testing services. The data generated was used to calculate the proposed indicators. In Poland, positive test results from the community testing database were linked to the national case-based surveillance database using confirmatory test number, to improve the completeness of behavioural data in the national database. In Serbia, voluntary counselling and testing forms were improved enabling identification of community-based testing. A system to generate unique client identifiers was initiated in the National registry of HIV cases to monitor linkage to care. Results All three sites were able to estimate most of the agreed indicators. In Slovakia during the study period 675 people were tested for HIV, 410 for hepatitis C and 457 for syphilis, with reactivity rates of 0.4, 2.5 and 1.8%, respectively. For HIV, 66.7% of reactive cases were confirmed and linked to care. In Poland, 28.9% of the community testing sites’ records were linked to the national surveillance database (and accounted for 14.3% of all new diagnoses registered here during 2017–2018). Reactivity rate ranged between 1.9% and 2.1%. In Serbia, 80 persons were tested at community sites, from which two had a reactive HIV test result. By linking unique client identifiers from voluntary counselling and testing and National Registry of HIV cases databases, linkage to care within a two-month period was observed for one of two people with reactive HIV test result. Conclusions Pilot activities in the three countries demonstrate that integration of community-based testing data into surveillance systems is feasible and can help improve national surveillance data by providing key information.

Slovakia belongs to the group of European countries with a low prevalence of HIV infection. The major proportion of HIV-positive cases in Slovakia is still represented by MSM, followed by heterosexuals infected through unprotected sexual intercourse. This study was conducted to update the description of HIV subtypes circulating in Slovakia. HIV-1 partial pol gene sequences from 143 individuals were prospectively collected from 2004 to 2008 and analyzed. Phylogenetic analysis based on HIV-1 partial pol gene sequences revealed the highest prevalence of HIV-1 B subtype (93.0 %), predominantly associated with the MSM group. Ten (7.0%) individuals were infected with HIV-1 non-B subtypes. The pure subtypes were more frequent (7; 4.9%) than CRFs (3; 2.1%) and their occurrence was as follows: subtype C (3; 2, 1%), subtype A (2; 1.4%), subtype F (2; 1.4%), CRF_01AE (1; 0.7%), CRF_02AG (1; 0.7%), and CRF08_BC (1; 0.7%). Data show slightly increasing HIV-1 subtype diversity, with HIV-1 subtype B still having the highest prevalence in the Slovak-infected population.

The HIV infection remains a major public health issue in the world and especially in those countries where there exists unprotected sexual intercourse between people of the same sex. It is namely the category of men having sex with men (MSM) that still represents a group at high risk of being infected with HIV or transmitting the virus. The aim of our study was to present HIV 2nd generation surveillance data on MSM in Slovakia in the period between the years 2008 and 2009. Time-location sampling (TLS) was used to recruit participants and oral fluid samples together with completed anonymous questionnaires were collected simultaneously. The oral fluids were tested with use of the Genscreen HIV 1/2 version 2, (Bio-Rad) and Western Blot (Genlabs) diagnostic kits. The data analysis was performed using Stata version 8. Saliva testing revealed HIV prevalence of 6.1% (21/349) among MSM in Slovakia. 75% of HIV-positive cases were undiagnosed. The high-risk behaviour of MSM in respect to the number of their sexual partners as well as drug and condom usage did not correspond with their relatively high knowledge about HIV/AIDS. People's attitude towards MSM was found to be the worst in the religious context. Though our results reflect a relative good knowledge of MSM about HIV/AIDS infection, new HIV-positive cases and high-risk behaviour still appear, suggesting the need for more effective HIV prevention among members of this high-risk group in Slovakia.