VII. Conclusion

The opportunity to learn one's HIV status is an important aspect of the realization of the right to health. However, the right to know your status should not simply be viewed as an autonomous right. States must offer HIV testing services as part of a continuum of health care services. While expanding access to HIV counseling and testing should be a key priority for all high prevalence countries, testing should be expanded not on its own but as part of a broader effort to scale up HIV-related healthcare and other services.

Community-based testing campaigns have real potential. They offer a real chance to reach out to populations that are otherwise unlikely to test. However, Lesotho's KYS campaign shows that mass community-based HIV counseling and testing campaigns do not offer the quick fix for the HIV pandemic that some public health and other officials appear to have believed they would. International organizations such as WHO and UNAIDS can and must learn important lessons from the KYS campaign. These campaigns need careful planning, sufficient funding, good training, ample coordination, proper oversight, and the involvement of civil society, which can play a critical role in ensuring accountability and reporting potential human rights abuses. Without these elements, these programs risk failing to achieve their ambitious goals-as happened in Lesotho-or, worse, damaging the cause they were intended to serve.