From testing to comprehensive care: a mobile HIV and syphilis testing programme as an entry point to Primary Health Care in Cañuelas, Buenos Aires

Dispositivo itinerante de VIH y sífilis como puerta de entrada a la atención primaria en Cañuelas, Buenos Aires (2024-2026)

Abstract

Timely access to HIV and syphilis diagnosis remains a challenge in Buenos Aires municipalities with dispersed geography and structural barriers to health care access. In response to this gap, the Programmatic Area and Health Networks Service (SAPS) of the “Dr. Dardo Rocha” Sub-zonal Hospital in Cañuelas has implemented, since November 2024, a mobile HIV and syphilis rapid testing programme that visits localities across the district in coordination with the municipal Health Secretariat and the Municipal Hospital “Dr. Ángel Marzetti”. The programme relies on an interdisciplinary team with differentiated roles, covering the full circuit: pre-test counselling, finger-prick testing, post-test counselling, telephone follow-up, epidemiological recording and referral. Between November 2024 and July 2026, 24 testing sessions were held at 5 sites, reaching 452 individuals (mean 18.8 per session). Among the 351 people with a recorded result (February 2025 to July 2026), reactivity was 11.1% for syphilis—7.1% active infection and 4.0% serological scar after VDRL confirmation—and 1.1% for HIV: of the four reactive HIV tests, two were new diagnoses and two corresponded to people previously diagnosed, one of them without follow-up for three years. Women accounted for 75.5% of participants, median age was 31.5 years, and 36.1% had never been tested before. One in five (20.8%) had never had a health check-up, and in 2026, 47.6% left the session with a referral for another preventive check. The experience shows that a mobile model grounded in a human rights approach, risk and harm reduction, a gender perspective, an interdisciplinary team and inter-institutional coordination expands timely diagnosis of sexually transmitted infections and works as an entry point to primary health care in territories with access inequities.