“The right time is just after birth”: acceptability of point-of-care birth testing in Eswatini: qualitative results from infant caregivers, health care workers, and policymakers

Testing for HIV at birth has the potential to identify infants infected in utero, and allows for the possibility of beginning treatment immediately after birth; point of care (POC) testing allows rapid return of results and faster initiation on treatment for positive infants. Eswatini piloted birth testing in three public maternities for over 2 years.

In order to assess the acceptability of POC birth testing in the pilot sites in Eswatini, interviews were held with caregivers of HIV-exposed infants who were offered birth testing (N = 28), health care workers (N = 14), and policymakers (N = 10). Participants were purposively sampled. Interviews were held in English or SiSwati, and transcribed in English. Transcripts were coded by line, and content analysis and constant comparison were used to identify key themes for each respondent type.

Responses were categorized into: knowledge, experience, opinions, barriers and challenges, facilitators, and suggestions to improve POC birth testing. Preliminary findings reveal that point of care birth testing has been very well received but challenges were raised. Most caregivers appreciated testing the newborns at birth and getting results quickly, since it reduced anxiety of waiting for several weeks. However, having a favorable experience with testing was linked to having supportive and informed family members and receiving a negative result. Caregivers did not fully understand the need for blood draws as opposed to tests with saliva, and expressed the fears of seeing their newborns in pain. They were specifically grateful for supportive nursing staff who respected their confidentiality. Health care workers expressed strong support for the program but commented on the high demand for testing, increased workload, difficulty with errors in the testing machine itself, and struggles to implement the program without sufficient staffing, especially on evenings and weekends when phlebotomists were not available. Policymakers noted that there have been challenges within the program of losing mothers to follow up after they leave hospital, and recommended stronger linkages to community groups.

There is strong support for scale-up of POC birth testing, but countries should consider ways to optimize staffing and manage demand.