South African Press Association - June 10, 2005
Carole Landry

With studies showing that less than 20% of South Africans know their HIV status, a new programme is providing free, anonymous testing in poor areas on the outskirts of Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town.

"We are trying to appeal to the population which does not go to the health centres because they are not sick, even though they have been at risk and need to know their status," said Miriam Mhavo, programme director for the New Start voluntary testing and counselling service.

New Start began pitching its blue tents -- usually four for counselling and a fifth for the laboratory -- in February, travelling to "very low-income areas", said Mhavo in an interview on the sidelines of the national Aids conference being held in Durban this week.

"We go into communities for those people who do not come to the city centre for business or can't afford to take the bus," she said of the programme funded by the Department of Health, the United States Centers for Disease Control and the NGO Society for Family Health.

The tents are linked to sites set up in the three cities that encourage South Africans to undergo HIV testing, without having to brave the long queues at clinics and hospitals.

The new testing programme is trying to convince men, who studies show are less inclined to go for testing, to come to the tents by running advertisements that show a healthy-looking South African male giving the thumbs-up to HIV testing.

Mhavo said the effort has thus far had mixed results.

In the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province, where the HIV/Aids prevalence rate is higher than the national average of 21,5%, about 60% of the clients who come to the testing sites are women.

"Some say that Zulu women take on to new concepts, new ideas, much faster and that they are less conservative than men," said Mhavo. "But that's from informal discussion. We have no research-based reasons as to why we are seeing more women than men."

Of the 3 326 people who have been tested under New Start, 21% are infected with HIV, according to Mhavo.

"Most people who tested positive did not think they were at risk," said Mhavo, who brought her tents to the Aids conference to provide delegates with free testing. "That is worrisome."

United Nations Aids statistics estimate that 5,3-million people, or one in five adults, are living with HIV and Aids in South Africa, one of the highest caseloads in the world.

Other than being accessible, the testing programme also guarantees confidentiality. Clients are not required to give their names and are assigned a code number before they begin a 20-to-45-minute counselling session to prepare them for the result of the HIV test.

"We put a lot of emphasis on the pre-test session," said Mhavo, because clients are either so shocked or so relieved from the result that in both cases, they stop listening to the advice.

The test itself takes about 10 minutes, using blood drawn from a simple finger-prick.

Those who test negative but may have been at risk are encouraged to return in three months.

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