On 19 – 21 March 2023 KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation attended and presented at the 34th Ethiopian Public Health Associations (EHPA) Annual Conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The theme of this year’s EPHA Annual Conference was ‘Responding to the health effects of climate change and conflict’, with discussions on emerging and-re-emerging health problems; climate change, food security and nutrition; and health system response to the double burden of climate change and conflict.
Israel Mitiku Hatau, researcher officer at the IMPAACT4C19 project implemented by KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation in Ethiopia, presented the abstract entitled ‘Feasibility and acceptability of self-testing for COVID-19 in selected regions of Ethiopia: a mixed method study’.
359 clients offered COVID-19 self-testing, of which 94.2% performed the self-testing. Of these, 61.3% felt some level of risk of infection for COVID-19 and 53.8% had never been tested for COVID-19. Results from the client interviews indicate that self-testing was valued and believed to address barriers to COVID-19 testing. Healthcare workers stated that self-testing could reduce the burden on health facilities and health workers’ risk of infection. Nonetheless, they were concerned that people testing positive would fail to report back to health facilities. Test kit availability, cost, result accuracy concerns, and disease-related perceptions were believed to affect the acceptability of the COVID-19 self-testing.