Promises and Tensions: Clinic-Based HIV Viral Load Testing and Infant Diagnosis in Papua New Guinea

ABSTRACT Using a sociomaterial perspective based on interviews with health workers, we examine how clinic-based HIV viral load testing and early infant diagnosis technologies reshape health care realities in Papua New Guinea. The use of such technologies redefine professional roles and health care experiences by empowering health workers to translate biomedical data into client-centered clinical management, while also contributing systemic tensions, such as the paradoxical recentralizing of care and heavier workloads. Despite these challenges, health workers view these clinic-based technologies as transformative tools that support ethical decision-making, reduce preventable deaths and expand equitable health care.