Virtual networker answers questions about HIV

Chatbot will tell you about HIV

With the chatbot prepared by Unite the Positive in the Rainbow, you can talk about HIV at any time of the day or night

Warsaw, 6 July 2021. A chatbot for conversations about HIV diagnosis was developed as part of the 'Holidays plus' project of Unite the Positive in the Rainbow. By automating the search for answers to the most common concerns, the virtual networker efficiently answers the most important questions about HIV testing. Short videos, talking about HIV and the need for testing, as well as promoting healthy lifestyles, are intended to get people interested in talking to the chatbot, and will appear regularly throughout the holidays on social media. The project is being implemented as part of the Positively Open competition. It launches during the summer holidays, as summer is a time when young people are more likely to engage in risky behaviour.

The chatbot is available, among others, on the Facebook profile of Unite the Positive in the Rainbow: https://www.facebook.com/pozytywniwteczy with every interaction via Messenger. It has two basic pathways. "Pre-test" is an option where the internet user is asked questions similar to those heard at an onsite Consultation and Diagnostic Centre. Usually, the bot suggests an HIV test at the end. The second pathway, which can be selected at the beginning of the conversation, leads to information about HIV testing provided in the form of short questions and answers.

"HIV prevention information and links to the chatbot are now available on our social media accounts: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. We are posting materials there aimed primarily at young audiences - kept in a light style but conveying important information. During the holidays, we will be posting new material every week - there will be a lot going on!" - says project coordinator Krzysztof Tylicki.

The first of the materials, which will appear on the social media of Unite the Positive in the Rainbow regularly throughout the holidays, are already available on the organisation's Fb profile. They encourage people to get tested for HIV at the Consultation and Diagnosis Points.

"The problem of HIV can affect anyone, but the available data shows that young people are most often infected with the virus, so information about prevention, testing and treatment should be found in the media used by this particular social group, especially social media. That is why I believe that the chatbot of the Pozytywni w Rainbow Association will be an effective tool in the fight against HIV," concluded Paweł Mierzejewski of Gilead Sciences, coordinator of the Positively Open programme.

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The aim of the Positively Open programme is to promote HIV prevention and knowledge about the possibilities of a normal life with the virus. Within the programme there is a competition for institutions which would like to run or already run programmes in the area of education and activation, as well as HIV/AIDS prevention and diagnostics. The partners of the Programme are the Mayor of the Capital City of Warsaw, the National AIDS Centre, the National Institute of Public Health - PZH, "Służba Zdrowia", the publishing house Termedia, and the company Gilead Sciences, which in the last ten years has allocated 2 million PLN for grants enabling the implementation of competition projects.

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