The AIDS Healthcare Foundation/Magic Johnson Testing America Tour arrived in Columbia on Wednesday and is offering free tests to anyone who is interested for two days this week.

The tests are given in their new state-of-the-art mobile facility that can be found at Lewis Scott Court in Eastover from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Thursday.

The six month tour, that will span 48 states when completed, hopes to provide awareness about the importance of testing in addition to the free testing facility.

The South Carolina HIV/AIDS Council has teamed up with the AHF to provide local support.

According to a report done in 2007 by the Centers for Disease Control, South Carolina is home to over 14,000 residents infected with AIDS.  That’s 1.4 percent of the national total.

Source: midlandsconnect.com

Furthermore household members of index patients who tested HIV positive were 54% less likely to accept VCT (voluntary counselling and testing) than household members of patients who tested negative, and 78% less likely if the index patient had been tested at home.

The researchers suggest that this is not because HIV was explicitly discussed in households with an HIV-positive member, and people were afraid to test, but rather the opposite: the stigma of HIV meant that HIV testing was less likely to be discussed and normalised in households both where someone did have HIV, and in households where someone did not have HIV but feared they did.

The researchers conclude that “community-level interventions are needed to mitigate the effects of HIV stigma” in order to improve VCT rates and address a situation where the very people more likely to have HIV are those less likely to take a test.

Reference
Charlebois E et al. Impact of anticipated and actual HIV status on referral and acceptance of household testing in Kampala, Uganda. 17th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, San Francisco, abstract 1008, 2010.

Source: Aidsmap

It also found that those who thought they had HIV were significantly less likely to refer members of their household for HIV testing than those who did not think so.

And it found that if a study member did test HIV-positive, members of their household were much less likely to accept the offer of an HIV test than members of households with no HIV-positive member.

The survey was jointly conducted by researchers from the University of California, San Francisco and Makerere University, Uganda.

The study enrolled 419 patients of unknown HIV status who presented for tuberculosis (TB) evaluation at the Uganda National TB and Leprosy Control Agency in Kampala, Uganda, because their household included someone with active TB. Further details of the study can be viewed on the Makerere University website here.

The patients were part of a study that randomised HIV testing of the patient and members of their household to on-site testing at the TB clinic or to home-based testing by mobile health workers.

Before receiving their test result (in either setting), index patients were asked what they anticipated the result would be and how willing they were to refer other household members for clinic-based or home-based testing.

After they received the result, other household members were asked how willing they were to accept an HIV test (regardless of whether the test result was disclosed).

Most participants were male (62%) and their mean age was 31. Just over 40% of participants were married, just under 40% never had been, and the remaining 20% were separated or widowed.

The first striking finding was that far more participants thought they had HIV than actually did. The actual HIV prevalence in the group was 19% (80 individuals), but fully two-thirds of the group (276 individuals) anticipated a positive result. In fact:

• 18% correctly assumed they were HIV-positive

• 33% correctly assumed they were HIV-negative

• Only 1.4% of the group thought they were HIV-negative when they in fact had HIV

• 48% of the group thought they were HIV-positive when they did not have HIV.

Source: Aidsmap

Facts – Screening Blood for HIV

    - On March 2, 1985, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved
      the first-ever diagnostic test to screen blood donors for antibodies to
      HIV. This first test was developed by Abbott.
    - The first test to screen donors for exposure to the virus took nine
      months of around-the-clock work by dozens of Abbott scientists to
      develop.
    - U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Margaret Heckler
      announced FDA approval
      (http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ByAudience/ForPatientAdvocates/HIVand
      AIDSActivities/ucm151074.htm) of the first test at a news conference
      in Washington, D.C. The screening test was immediately adopted by the.
      American Red Cross (http://www.redcross.org/) and other blood
      organizations.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Facts – HIV

    - In 1985, the virus was widely called HTLV-III
      (http://www.thebody.com/Forums/AIDS/SafeSex/Archive/origins/Q8777.html).
      The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses
      (http://www.ictvonline.org/index.asp?bhcp=1) changed the name to Human
      Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in May of 1986.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit
    - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
      (http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/index.htm) estimates that
      there are 56,000 new cases of HIV in the United States annually, down
      from an estimated peak of 130,000 new cases in the mid-1980s.
    - In 2008, UNAIDS (http://www.unaids.org/en/default.asp) estimated
      that 2.7 million people throughout the world are newly infected with
      HIV each year, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa.
    - Women account for 50 percent of adults living with HIV globally.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

This is Regan Hofmann, who has been living with HIV for 14 years.

Hofmann grew up in Princeton, N.J., and graduated from the private, co-ed Princeton Day School and Trinity College in Hartford, CT. Soon after, she married and moved to Atlanta, GA, with her husband, where she was hoping to find a writing job. Then the marriage failed.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

After her divorce at 28, Hofmann started dating a man.

“I had sex without a condom twice,” she says.

She never imagined her boyfriend was HIV positive.

“He seemed so clean and safe. He had a nice family. He sang to me and let me drive the boat, with his arms wrapped protectively around my shoulders, when we went waterskiing,” she said.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

He was the kind of man she’d bring home to her family. She didn’t know that he had a sore on his leg that would not heal. He did not know the implications of his sore.

But Hofmann knew that shortly after unprotected sex – when she and her boyfriend were in the process of breaking up – she had a swollen lymph node in her upper leg. She went to the doctor, who gave her an HIV test.

He gave her the results with these words: “I don’t know how to tell you this, so I am just going to tell you. Your blood work shows that you are HIV-positive. I am so sorry.”home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Back then, Hofmann considered HIV a death sentence. But instead of “planning for my impending death and a graceful demise with a service of song, dance, drink, and celebration,” she is now “completely and thankfully healthy.”

She estimates that she has consumed over 48,000 pills over the past 14 years – mostly protease-inhibitors, which have kept the virus at bay. Today, her regime is down to three pills a day.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

She has never had a negative reaction to the drugs or suffered ill effects from HIV. She sums up her good health by saying, quite calmly, “You can have a normal life with HIV.”

Her ex-boyfriend died five years ago from complications of AIDS. Hofmann says he didn’t know he had the virus or that he was passing it along to her. She says he was not “a gift-giver” – a person who knowingly and intentionally passes along HIV.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Hofmann tells her story in an exceptionally well-written book, I Have Something to Tell You. It reads like a novel and is selling well. (”Even my plumber has read it,” she confides.)

She says that writing the book – and more importantly, telling the truth about life with HIV – was “a new beginning.” It led her to become an activist and gave her life a mission: “to tell everyone in the world willing to listen how to prevent getting HIV, how to get tested, how to get proper treatment in order to live, and how to change the insulting stigma so often associated with the disease.”home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Hofmann fulfills her mission in several ways: She is editor-in-chief of POZ, a national magazine for people living with HIV and AIDS. And she recently joined the board of directors of AmfAR, The Foundation for AIDS research, by far the most important organization of its kind in the U.S.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Despite years of hard work, Hofmann worries she’s not doing enough. She’s deeply concerned about the current state of the pandemic.

“The world and America are suffering from ‘AIDS apathy,’ ” she says.

The numbers she reels off are proof that there is no reason for complacency: Every nine seconds, someone in the world is diagnosed with HIV; 33.4 million people are estimated to be living with the virus, and 25 million have died from AIDS to date. The numbers, she says, “make the HIV/AIDS pandemic far and away the worst medical catastrophe to have visited humankind since the Black Death struck Europe in the 14th century.”home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Hofmann is concerned about the disease’s effect on women, particularly African-American women. AIDS is the number-one killer of women between the ages of 15 and 44 worldwide; in the U.S., 27 percent of people infected with HIV are female and disproportionately African-American (although the good news is that African-American men are more likely to get tested than other racial and ethnic groups).home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

“Women are not in a position of power when it comes to sex,” says Hofmann, when asked about the discrepancy in numbers. She talks of women she has seen in her travels who are caught up in the sex trade.

“They have sex to make money to buy food to feed their children. They make more money if they have sex without a condom – almost five times more than if they have sex with a man who uses one,” she says.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

She sees the development and use of microbicides as one of the most promising preventive interventions to emerge over the past decade. She says they are an effective weapon against HIV/AIDS for young girls forced into early marriage in sub-Sahara Africa and other parts of the developing world. These young women are often infected by their older husbands, who have had unprotected sex with HIV-positive prostitutes.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Hofmann’s activist work has taken her as far away as Vietnam and as near as Greenwich, CT. She remembers a visit to a Greenwich middle school, when a supervisor warned her not to answer any questions about sex, and a 12-year-old male student asked her if it was safe to keep a condom in his wallet. Hoffman plowed ahead and answered him: “Just make sure that you check the expiration date on the condom and don’t use it if it has expired.” The student shot back: “Oh, I’ll get to it long before it expires.”home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Hofmann is frustrated with Americans’ views about sexuality education. She quotes her mother: “Condoms are like Band-Aids and gardening gloves: they’re just a protective device.” She wishes that every parent and teacher would use this wise analogy.

She has wonderful ideas for HIV/AIDS prevention. She’d like to see HIV-prevention ads run during halftime of the 2011 Super Bowl.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

“Why can’t we discuss how football and the leadership idolatry it creates be leveraged to help educate American youth about sexual health?” she asks. “Give us one cool player from each team mentioning the use of ‘safe sex,’ and maybe a cheerleader or two, and that should get the nation’s attention!”

She favors teaching young people decision-making skills in sex ed, so that in the heat of the moment, they will have the skills they need to discuss using condoms or not having sex.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

“Courses have to be much more explicit than most presently are, and young people need to practice putting condoms over rubber penises in the classroom. They also need to learn to put them on in the dark,” says Hofmann.

“Sex isn’t just kissing or intercourse; it’s everything in between,” she adds.

For Regan Hofmann – whose story has given her a global vision and global work – preventing HIV is about self-esteem, human rights, and personal dignity. She will spend her life doing everything in her power to removing its stigma and stop the virus from infecting more women and men.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

That is what Hofmann has to tell us.

Will we listen?

On World AIDS day of last year Zuma stated, “We have no choice but to deploy every effort, mobilise every resource, and utilise every skill that our nation possesses, to ensure that we prevail in this struggle for the health and prosperity of our nation The amount of resources dedicated to prevention, treatment and care [for HIV and TB] has increased…but it is not enough. Much more needs to be done. We need extraordinary measures to reverse the trends we are seeing in the health profile of our people.”home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Despite the poverty of the area, the Khayelitsha programme is a place where extraordinary measures have been implemented for more than a decade. It is an important model for demonstrating the feasibility of different strategies to achieve the targets set forth in the National Strategic Plan (NSP) for HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), including achieving “universal coverage” of antiretrovirals, by 2011- all of which would have been impossible without the relentless combined efforts of Khayelitsha residents, the Treatment Action Campaign, Médecins Sans Frontières, the Provincial Government of the Western Cape, the City of Cape Town, the Universities of Cape Town and Stellenbosch, and many others.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Khayelitsha was the first in South Africa to provide ARVs in public sector clinics and its initial success contributed to the paradigm shift from the consensus that providing ARVs was not feasible in poor settings, to making it a priority. It is also one of two pilot projects in the country to provide treatment for drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) in clinics while patients live at home, rather than requiring hospitalisation away from family and friends for at least six months.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Doctors working in Khayelitsha hailed the first of December 2009 as the first “happy” World AIDS Day this country had ever seen. Indeed President Zuma’s speech and the newly approved HIV treatment guidelines include evidence-based HIV and TB policy shifts that many had been fighting for for years, such as providing ARVs to all HIV-infected infants and to pregnant women and people with TB with a CD4 count of less than 350. The President also committed to treating TB and HIV “under one roof” and ensuring that all the health institutions in the country are ready to assist patients and not just a few accredited ARV centres.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

“I talk to them and they tell me they are afraid,” Margaret Mapunda, a trained community health worker in Tanzania’s commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, told IRIN/PlusNews. “Some want [children] but they don’t know what to do and just conceive and go to traditional birth attendants to deliver. home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

“Many are taking antiretrovirals and they don’t even know which contraceptives are good and bad,” she added. “They do not ask because of stigma. Some say they are abused at health facilities.”

Since 2008, more than 3,000 couples have received family planning services from home-based care service providers in the areas of Dar es Salaam, Arusha and Kilimanjaro under the Tutunzane – Swahili for “let’s care for each other” – project, run by reproductive health NGO, Pathfinder International. home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Family planning needs

A 2009 study conducted in the northern Tanzanian region of Mwanza and published in the journal, AIDS, found numerous potential benefits of offering family planning counselling as a part of antenatal services, particularly in clinics offering HIV testing.

According to Children and AIDS, Fourth Stock Taking Report 2009, by the UN Children’s Fund, as many as 130,000 HIV-positive Tanzanian women become pregnant every year; 53 percent of these have access to prevention of mother-to-child transmission services. home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

A study carried out by Pathfinder International in 2008 found that 90 percent of home-based care providers were willing to add family planning services to their activities but lacked adequate training. So far the project has trained about 250 community health workers to integrate family planning messages into their HIV counselling. home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

“Community home-based care service providers are very low cost and they interact more with people living with HIV than anybody else; they therefore provide a perfect opportunity to reach out to them, including with family planning services,” said Judith Rwakyendela, reproductive health and family planning programme officer at Pathfinder International. home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

“When you give people antiretrovirals, the objective is to make them live longer, yet many of them become strong, active and engage in sex without necessarily aiming at having a baby,” she added. “It is important that they are given the opportunity to prevent unwanted pregnancies, which plays the twin role of improving their health and preventing mother to child transmission.” home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Johannes and Vivian Murliryianga*, from the Dar es Salaam suburb of Sinza, have five children; they are now receiving counselling from a community health worker as they try to prevent more pregnancies. Unfortunately, they learned about prevention of mother-to-child transmission too late to stop their youngest child from contracting HIV. home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

“I normally did not go to a government hospital, I just had my babies at a clinic run by some lady to whom we give small money and she allows you to give birth at her place. We just call her shangazi [auntie],” Vivian said. “I was surprised when my child tested positive; I didn’t even know children could get HIV.” home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Under the Pathfinder programme, couples like Vivian and Johannes are given family planning advice according to their situation and needs.

“As you know family planning methods are many – we just give them choices depending on what they prefer and the situation,” Mapunda said. “You will get some married couples telling you they prefer condoms, especially among discordant ones; some want pills. We counsel them on the merits and demerits of each.” home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Involving men

She noted that while counselling had been largely successful, encouraging men to participate had been a challenge. “We have seen more success where fathers agree to join the programme but not all are willing and it becomes very difficult because it means the mother does many of the things secretly,” she said. home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

“Imagine trying to give these services to a woman who fears disclosing her status or whose husband’s status is unknown; it is a challenge but we try what we can,” she added.

Kim Dickson, a medical officer in the HIV prevention unit at the World Health Organization, told the conference that even though 90,000 men were circumcised in Kenya in 2009, this is still only 60% of the number the country needs to reach, according to mathematical models, in order to reduce HIV prevalence by 45-50% by 2025. home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

However a programme called the Expanded Access Initiative using volunteers managed to perform 36,000 circumcisions in the two months of November and December 2009: a measure of the kind of commitment needed if high-prevalence countries with heterosexually driven epidemics are to successfully use male circumcision as an HIV prevention strategy. home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Dickson summarised the research evidence for circumcision – see Aidsmap’s section on circumcision for a summary of this. Circumcision prevents at least six in ten HIV infections in men, offers partial protection against herpes and human papillomavirus (HPV), and probably prevents about three in ten infections in female partners of circumcised men. home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

A mathematical model has suggested that if male circumcision in a country where 35% of the men were already circumcised rose to 80%, it would reduce HIV prevalence in the whole population by 25% and in women by about 20%. This proportion of men circumcised would prevent over four million HIV infections in the focus countries by 2015. This would save $20.2 billion at a cost of $4 billion. home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

This would require performing the huge figure of 12 million circumcisions in the peak year (2012 for the model’s purposes). Botswana alone, for instance, would spend $9 million in this year but the savings would be immediate, amounting to $13 million in the same year and rising to $23 million after four years. Botswana’s cumulative cost would be $30 million, but its cumulative saving $300 million. home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Following the randomised controlled trials, a WHO global consultation in 2007 recommended male circumcision should be scaled up in 13 African countries where HIV prevalence was over 15% and where there were low levels of circumcision. These were Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

The consultation emphasised that in each country there would be a different set of ethical issues, communication needs, cultural attitudes, health systems, political and legal frameworks, prevention strategies and funding structures, and these needed to be addressed on a country-by-country basis. home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

“There is a lot going on in the scale-up countries, and advocacy is vibrant,” said Dickson, but progress has varied considerably.

Kenya has made the most progress, with the figures cited above. However no other country has performed nearly as well. The next-largest number of circumcisions performed was in Zambia, with 16,800 circumcisions in 2009 and 6200 in the last two months of the year, when Kenya performed 36,000. Only four countries – these two plus Botswana and Rwanda – are delivering nationally run services (Rwanda only in the military), Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique are piloting schemes, and South Africa has one pilot site in Orange Farm as a continuation of its randomised controlled trial there. But other countries are still at the stage of training staff or finishing off implementation and monitoring strategies. home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Even getting this far has required a lot of dialogue and communication between different groups. In 2008 a meeting of African Ministers of Health endorsed the WHO strategy but there have had to be multi-level stakeholder meetings with groups ranging from traditional leaders in Kenya and Lesotho to women’s groups in Zimbabwe. home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

As in many other areas, the presence of strong leadership and a champion for the approach has been crucial; for instance in Botswana former president Festus Mogae is leading the circumcision drive, while in Kenya it took a personal meeting between the Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, and the Luo Council of Elders to overcome previous opposition to the concept in this traditionally uncircumcised people. home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Kenya aims to have at least 84% of males circumcised by 2013, which would cost up to $56 million.

In late 2009 it launched a so-called Rapid Results Initiative (RRI) in Nyanza Province (home of the Luo), which achieved 1200 circumcisions a day in 30 working days in eleven districts. Up to 95 teams of workers undertook the programme, averaging 9.6 circumcisions per team and a maximum of 22.8, at a cost of $30 each, far less than the WHO estimate of $50. home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

An important aspect of the Kenyan RRI was that the country has already conducted other RRIs, for instance in HIV testing.

There remain multiple challenges and constraints to implementing the programme, Dickson commented.

Human resources are a significant barrier; not merely getting enough personnel, but sometimes revising country protocols on who is allowed to perform minor operations. Such ‘task shifting’ will be vital if programmes are to be scaled-up. Burnout is a problem too, as teams perform hundreds of circumcisions “day after day, hour after hour”. home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

One unsolved problem is how to promote the uptake of HIV testing prior to circumcision and how to deal with men who test positive for HIV. At present WHO does not recommend their circumcision, partly because of evidence that in the period post-operation they might actually be more infectious. However this would mean that being uncircumcised would become seen as a mark of having HIV, so how not to stigmatise them was problematic. home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Countries were not clear on what funds are available and how to access them, though PEPFAR, the Gates Foundation and the Global Fund were all putting money into the field.

Traditional circumcisers exist in virtually every country, but there was still no clear policy on how to involve them. And there was no guidance on how to monitor possibly adverse societal effects, such as increased pressure on women to have unprotected sex. home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Dickson concluded that political leadership was one key to a successful programme, and the earliest possible engagement and consultation with all stakeholders the other.

Which? reported the sites selling the kits to the Department of Health. It is already investigating two of the sites, and will begin investigating the other two as a result of our research.

Dr Rob Reid, Which? scientific policy adviser, said: ‘These test kits are illegal, and are sometimes delivered without essential information. If you want an HIV test, go to an NHS sexual health clinic.’home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Illegal HIV test sales
We were able to purchase test kits from three websites – we ordered a test from a fourth site and it has yet to turn up.

Self Tests Direct, the only website to respond when contacted, said: ‘We had no idea we were not supposed to sell these kits in the UK.’ It has since taken its public website down.

We also discovered that eBay was carrying sponsored links to another site selling the test kits illegally. When we contacted eBay, it removed the links and has ensured similar links can’t be accessed via its site.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

The HIV testing is for students and community members of color in honor of National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.  The disease is hitting this segment of the U.S. population more severely.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

In an effort to spread awareness and education, the HIV Alliance is reaching out to the community.

HIV Prevention Specialists said safe sex should be a universal practice.  “Just to get the message out there, it’s not just African Americans who are affected by this. It’s every population and any person who has multiple partners and doesn’t use protect and shares injection drug needles, ” HIV Alliance Prevention Coordinator Tony Aaron Fuller said.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Only 25 Oraquick Rapid tests will be given out. It’s a quick swab of the mouth and results are ready in 20 minutes. Students we spoke to said they believe fear and stigmas keep people from getting tested. The Oraquick tests are 99% reliable.

HIV is 100% preventable. The HIV Alliance is organizing more events throughout the year. The next big event is National HIV/AIDS Testing Day. That event is open to everyone.

The free testing event is Tuesday 1-6 pm at the University of Oregon, inside the Multi-Cultural Center located in the EMU.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

We got diagnosed on December 16, 2004. That was a terrible day. My fiancé and I went to a clinic to get our full STD screening. We just went because it was the right thing to do. Not because either of us thought we had anything. No signs or symptoms; nothing wrong. We had gotten the finger prick test. HIV testing done in 20 minutes. You know right then and there what your results will be.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

I had been tested in June of that same year. Came back negative then, no reason to think different of this test. Boy was I wrong. Aids was something you killed with bleach on the floor, not something I could catch. Wrong. I caught it.

My fiancé is a bisexual man who’s gotten into fights before and worked as a chef (a clumsy one at that.) There’s no telling where the contaminated blood came from that got him sick, but it did. From somewhere, and then it got me. We went home that day in utter shock. Some tears were shed but not like you’d expect. I had no idea what this meant for me.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

I got on the Internet and found horrible stories of what the medication could do to you, outdated information about death in the early 90s. Fear and hate spewing from my computer screen. We didn’t have insurance and we didn’t know where to turn. We needed to see a doctor but who? Where?

We got in contact with our local Aids assistance organisation and they helped us find a doctor and sign up for the state health programme. There was a long wait before we could see the doctor. Apparently, he was a busy man. That saddened me greatly but I couldn’t focus on much but myself at that point.home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

By February 24, 2005 we had already gotten our blood drawn, now we were coming back to get the results. As we walked into the lobby the entire room was middle aged men. Most of them were Latino and African American. That’s not to say that they are in the majority, but in my town, at the time I went to that office, they were the only ones there. Mind you, I was a white 22-year-old woman at the time. I couldn’t have possibly felt more out of place. I wanted to turn tail and see about getting my results over the phone. I didn’t want to be in that office, that much was for sure. I felt like everyone was assuming I was just there to support my fiancée, and I was; but who was there to support me?home hiv test, hiv self test, home hiv kit

Surrounded by neatly trimmed bushes and flower beds, Johnson Matthey Catalysts in Germiston, South Africa, just outside of Johannesburg, looks more like a botanical garden than a factory. But every day nearly 600 workers pass through its doors to their jobs on an assembly line making catalytic converters that are inserted in cars to reduce pollution, complying with South Africa ’s auto environmental emissions standards.Home hiv test, home hiv kit, hiv test kit

As we arrived, Percy Nhlapo, a trainer with the Solidarity Center, an AFL-CIO affiliated non-profit organization that assists workers around the world who are struggling to build democratic and independent trade unions, was leading a discussion with a group of 10 workers, correcting misconceptions about contracting the HIV virus and urging participants to get tested. The Solidarity Center is working in partnership with the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (NUMSA), an industrial affiliate of the country’s largest union Federation COSATU, to train and provide free HIV/AIDS testing and counseling to several thousand manufacturing workers a year. Said Percy:Home hiv test, home hiv kit, hiv test kit

HIV/AIDS affects everyone. Educating workers is the first step in helping them prevent further infection, getting tested is the second.

He likes educating smaller groups to ensure a deeper, more open discussion and estimated that he and fellow trainers, Kuki Ndlovu and Nhlanhla Mabizela, would train at least 200 workers that day alone.

After the training, nearly all the workers voluntarily agreed to be tested. At the testing area, we spoke with registered nurse Dorothy Majola, who said that before workers are tested they are given private counseling, and then she administers two separate tests–both with 99.99 percent accuracy–to ensure correct results.Home hiv test, home hiv kit, hiv test kit

I find this job so rewarding because it so important that people know their status, as soon as they know their status they can change their lifestyle and behavior, which it will allow them to live longer lives.

Within 10 minutes after being tested, workers are escorted from an outdoor waiting area with tea and refreshments to sit privately with a counselor and receive their results. We spoke with several counselors who told us that the vast majority of workers test negative despite, in many cases, believing that they were infected. One counselor told us that this relief often translates into a change in behavior.Home hiv test, home hiv kit, hiv test kit

The company, Johnson Matthey Catalysts, in coordination with NUMSA and the Solidarity Center, agreed to host the training, allowing workers to attend and get tested at the beginning and end of their work shifts. Shop stewards spend weeks prior to the training educating their co-workers about the importance of attendance. This type of cooperation ensures that throughout several days, nearly everyone at the plant participated in the training and testing.Home hiv test, home hiv kit, hiv test kit

Brian Shezi, the HIV/AIDS program director for the Solidarity Center, told us the workers’ unions are effective spokespersons to train and encourage HIV testing because of the fundamental trust and connection workers feel towards them.

Since October 2005 we’ve been working with unions to promote access to HIV/AIDS services, education, gender training, and union capacity building.

Visiting worksites is just one of the Solidarity Center techniques to educate workers about HIV/AIDS. At the Rwanda/Uganda border in Katuna, Uganda, we visited a HIV/AIDS Resource Center providing a safe space for long-distance truck drivers to socialize and receive free education, counseling and HIV testing.Home hiv test, home hiv kit, hiv test kit

In the United States, blacks are most affected by the HIV epidemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Blacks comprise 12 percent of the U.S. population, but nearly half of the estimated 1 million people living with HIV and almost half of new HIV infections annually,” said Dr. Kevin Fenton, director of CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS in a statement.Home hiv test, home hiv kit, hiv test kit

Wilson organized the event as part of a larger program, the HIV/AIDS Awareness Series, which will continue throughout the year. 
She decided to take action after she read a report that the AIDS epidemic in America is more serious than previously believed.
For some, the threat might be painstakingly real. For others, getting tested is a precautionary measure.
“Everyone, not just students, should know his or her status,” Wilson said. “Individuals who are or who have ever been sexually active should get tested.”Home hiv test, home hiv kit, hiv test kit

While not all students are worried about contacting HIV/AIDS, it is a frightening reality for one University student who said she was recently sexually assaulted on campus. 
The student, who wished to remain anonymous, was one of the 30 students who received the test. 
“It’s a lot quicker here than it is at health services,” she said. 
The anonymous student explained how HIV testing at the HOPE office takes away a lot of the anxiety associated with waiting for test results.Home hiv test, home hiv kit, hiv test kit

“It could be a traumatic experience but here is nice and not as nerve-wracking,” she said.
The health centers use blood testing for HIV/AIDS and take longer to receive results than the fast and painless oral swabbing performed Monday at the event, according to a University Health Services pamphlet.
Liz Amaya-Fernandez, a health education specialist at the University, said testing is important because HIV/AIDS can be managed with proper treatment.Home hiv test, home hiv kit, hiv test kit

“The earlier you know, the better you can take care of it,” she said. 
Fernandez also advocates testing for individuals who have never had sex but have engaged in “risky” behavior like the use of alcohol or drugs, which have the ability to affect a person’s memory. 
There will be another free rapid-result testing event on March 10 in commemoration of National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.Home hiv test, home hiv kit, hiv test kit

SAMA has raised its concerns over the home testing kits.

It said people should rather be tested by trained professionals, qualified to provide psychological counseling – if they were diagnosed.

“We’ve heard rumours about people committing suicide after knowing their HIV status. We can not risk leaving people to test on their own. It’s a disease that needs support emotionally. It would be worse if that test were to give a wrong result,” said SAMA’s Norman Mabasa.home hiv test, home hiv kit, hiv self test