Estimating the impact of universal antiretroviral therapy for HIV serodiscordant couples through home HIV testing: insights from mathematical models

Introduction Antiretroviral therapy (ART) prevents HIV transmission within HIV serodiscordant couples (SDCs), but slow implementation and low uptake has limited its impact on population‐level HIV incidence. Home HIV testing and counselling (HTC) campaigns could increase ART uptake among SDCs by incorporating couples’ testing and ART referral. We estimated the reduction in adult HIV incidence achieved by incorporating universal ART for SDCs into home HTC campaigns in KwaZulu‐Natal (KZN), South Africa, and southwestern (SW) Uganda. Methods We constructed dynamic, stochastic, agent‐based network models for each region. We compared adult HIV incidence after 10 years under three scenarios: (1) “Current Practice,” (2) “Home HTC” with linkage to ART for eligible persons (CD4