Community engagement are essential in HIV responses. Key population (KP) play important roles on task sharing as one of methods of strengthening and expanding health workforce to rapidly increase access to HIV and STI services. Certain tasks are shared, where appropriate, from qualified health professionals to trained KP lay providers with certified trainings and particular practices in order to make more efficient use of human resources for health among members of KP.

Key populations in Thailand - men have sex with men (MSM), transgender women (TGW) and sex workers - established community health clinics as a key population-led health service (KPLHS) model to provide HIV and STI services, including peer outreach, HIV counseling, finger prick blood and specimen sample collections for HIV testing and STI screening, and dispensing of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) as well as linkage to care and treatment.

It was demonstrated that KPLHS successfully increased access to STI and HIV prevention, care and treatment services among KP. Tangerine Community Health Center, the first transgender-led clinic in Bangkok, provides comprehensive health services and gender-affirming hormone treatment to transgender women with high HIV and syphilis prevalence. In addition, SWING Foundation, led by sex worker communities, caters HIV and STI services to male sex workers located in Bangkok and Pattaya. Trained KP lay providers from Rainbow Sky Association of Thailand (RSAT) offers HIV testing, syphilis screening, PrEP and PEP to young MSM and those who engage in sex work. The impact of KPLHS contributed to 42% of HIV testing and 52% of PrEP uptake among KP nationally.

KPLHS as a promising model to accelerate an end to the AIDS epidemic must be expanded. Laws and regulations should be amended to allow implementation at scale. The government should be committed to community health financing to sustain KPLHS.

Disclosure No significant relationships.