and East Africa to end the AIDS epidemic. Along the way, SEARCH has transformed from this goal into a broad reaching project that is proving that universal treatment is possible and practical. Even in the most rural of areas, SEARCH has developed ways to track, test, and treat entire communities through valuable partnerships with local leaders. To create a sustainable health system, SEARCH has ini
tiated training programs for local counselors and health care providers and has facilitated linkage to care for people who need treatment for diseases beyond HIV, including but not limited to malaria, tuberculosis, hypertension, and diabetes. Ultimately, the outcomes of SEARCH will not only include the empirical proof that "test and treat" for HIV can bring a community's collective viral load to 0 to stop the spread of HIV. SEARCH's results will inform worldwide debates about the economic, educational, and social benefits of community based healthcare strategies. The SEARCH study includes 32 communities of roughly 10,000 persons each, in Uganda and Kenya. Communities with high HIV prevalence were chosen to represent the rates in East African countries.The study is a community cluster randomized trial in Uganda and Kenya of widespread early community wide antiretroviral therapy (ART) vs. standard of care, where primary endpoints will include both community health and community economic status. The primary way of implementing the trial is annual community health campaigns (CHCs) where everybody in the community receives testing, counseling, and linkage to care.
