Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2008. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Mail & Guardian Online - January 23, 2008
Guesswork: No sign advertises the availability of voluntary HIV counselling and testing (VCT) at the family planning centre in Port Sudan, a busy transportation hub in Sudan's Red Sea state. It is one of only three sites in town offering these services, but the waiting room is deserted. VCT only became available in Port Sudan in 2006 and, according to Ahmed Musa, local coordinator of the Sudanese National Aids Control Programme, it has been slow to catch on. Of the 181 people who were tested here last year, only 18 walked through the door on their own initiative; the rest were HIV "suspects" referred by their doctors and more than half had positive test results. With voluntary testing still at such low levels and the last national HIV-prevalence survey conducted more than five years ago, experts can only speculate about the extent to which HIV has taken hold in Africa's largest country. The 2002 survey indicated a national infection rate of about 1,6%, but was not broken down by state. A new HIV prevalence and behaviour change survey to be conducted later this year in both north and south Sudan will provide state-by-state data, but the results are unlikely to be available before next year. Experts agree that many factors allowing the rapid spread of HIV are present in eastern Sudan, which includes Red Sea State as well as Kassala and Gedaref states to the south. In the meantime, figures from VCT clinics are among the few indicators available.
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