Why get involved

By participating and campaigning to increase access to and availability of free, confidential HIV, hepatitis and STI testing across Europe, you can help more people than ever before become aware of their status. Your organisation or institution can participate in a number of ways, ranging from advocacy activities, awareness raising, testing outreach activities, training activities etc.  

Tell others about your ETW activities

We would like to encourage partners to share their ETW activities to encourage knowledge sharing and learning from others’ successes and challenges.

Feel free to share your materials/activities through the ETW social media networks on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter –tell us about your plans, share photos and tweet us to help build anticipation and excitement for future ETWs. Please remember to tag us (@EuroTestWeek on Twitter and @European Testing Week on Facebook) and use our hashtags (#EuroTestWeek #TestTreatPrevent) so we can see and share your posts!

It is important that government bodies and policy makers support evidence-based testing guidance for integrated HIV, viral hepatitis and STIs (including from ECDC and WHO). In particular, supporting policy that encourages free, voluntary and confidential testing; integrated testing (when feasible); lay provider testing; self-testing/self-sampling, etc. HIV, hepatitis and STI testing programmes require government support and funding in order to achieve impact.

Additionally, it is crucial for public institutions to publicly support and be in dialogue with local and national efforts to increase awareness on the importance of testing for HIV, viral hepatitis and STIs.

We encourage healthcare professionals to offer integrated HIV, hepatitis and STI testing whenever relevant. This includes healthcare professionals working in sexual health clinics, as well as those in general practice, emergency settings and in hospitals. As a healthcare professional, you may consider adopting screening for integrated HIV, hepatitis and STIs as part of routine care in high prevalence settings. For HIV, you can also use indicator condition guided HIV testing.

There are a number of ways that your organisation can help to increase access to HIV, hepatitis and STI testing. For example, you may want to carry out:

  • Advocacy initiatives for voluntary, confidential and free HIV, hepatitis, and/or STI testing
  • Awareness raising activities for key populations at higher risk
  • HIV, hepatitis, and/or STI testing outreach activities for key populations
  • Capacity building initiatives (e.g. training of medical students, healthcare staff)
  • Policy meetings
  • Engagement with opinion makers and the media

Register your organisation on the European Test Finder to allow users to search for your site when looking for a local test centre.