HIV sentinel surveillance provides data:
To monitor disease trends
To identify high risk population
To estimate disease incidence
To assess the quality of related services
Ans. a. To monitor disease trendsAlthough the HIV sentinel surveillance data has been primarily used for monitoring the trends, i.e. to assess how rapidly HIV infection increases or decreases over the time in different groups and areas, it can also provide an estimate of the total burden of HIV infection in the counttyHIV Sentinel SurveillanceAfter the establishment of the fact that the HIV infection is present in wide geographic areas, the objective of the sentinel surveillance was redefined to monitor the trends of HIV infectionQThe objective of the surveillance is best achieved by annual cross-sectional survey of the risk group in the same place over a few years by unlinked anonymous serological testing procedures by two ERS (i.e. when HIV testing is carried out without identification of name of samples collected for other purposes such as VDRL in STD clinics.) The number of samples to be screened must represent the risk group under study and the sample size is determined accordingly.Although the HIV sentinel surveillance data has been primarily used for monitoring the trends, i.e. to assess how rapidly HIV infection increases or decreases over the time in different groups and areas, it can also provide an estimate of the total burden of HIV infection in the countryQ