Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2008. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - January 29, 2008
Borrie La Grange
This despite more than 80% of them saying they knew where testing was available.
The Human Sciences Research Council surveyed security guards and people working in legal services, such as lawyers, and legal secretaries and clerks.
The survey found that though awareness of HIV-Aids among the 3000 workers interviewed in Gauteng, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal was high, only 53.2% of security guards had been tested - though 88.1% of the respondents said they knew where to get tested for infection by the virus.
More than 71% of legal-services workers said they had been tested for HIV.
The survey found that HIV- prevalence among security guards is 15.9% - 0.3% higher than the national average for adults.
The infection rate for people in the legal-services sector was lower than the average, at 13.8%.
The survey found that people younger than 24 use condoms more frequently than their elders.
A third of male legal-sector workers said they had two or more sexual partners, compared with only 5.2% of their female colleagues. A large majority of security workers (86.7%) said they had only one partner.
The researchers said employers should to do more to encourage HIV testing.
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