Quality assurance for point-of-care testing in Mozambique’s National Health Service

Health system and HIV epidemiology in Mozambique> Medical care in Mozambique is mostly provided through the national health service of the Ministry of Health. All primary healthcare and HIV-related services are provided free of charge. There are over 1500 public sector health facilities in Mozambique and most of these are primary healthcare centres. Although all hospitals have a laboratory, only a quarter of the health centres have a formal laboratory. In this context, point-of-care (POC) testing and syndromic management of diseases play an important role in the health system. Both communicable and non-communicable diseases are prevalent in the Mozambican population. Mozambique has a population of 28 million and is among the nine countries with the highest HIV prevalence in the world. HIV prevalence in the country among people aged 15-49 years is 11.5%, ranging from 3.7% in the Niassa province in the north to 25.1% in the Gaza province in the south. HIV prevalence is higher among women (13.1%) than among men (9.2%), and higher in urban areas (15.9%) compared with rural areas (9.2%). Among children aged between 0 and 11 years,HIV prevalence is 1.4%, and 2.3% in those younger than one year. It is estimated that 102 new infections in children occur daily in Mozambique (Ministry of Health, unpublished data). Demographic impact studies show that an estimated 1.6 million Mozambicans were living with HIV in 2009.