More Men Than Women Tested on National Testing Day
Arthur Usher
The first national testing day was held in Belize on June twenty-ninth. Free HIV tests were offered in public spaces across the country to encourage people to find out their status. Well, the National AIDS Commission is reporting a successful first national testing day. For the past five years, more men than women have been recorded with the infection. But for the first time, more men got tested than women. Arthur Usher of NAC tells us more about how they were able to achieve their targets for that day.
Arthur Usher, Communications Officer, NAC
“National Testing Day was done in eight sites. And so our final data from the Ministry Of Health is that our targets were twelve hundred and we did seventeen hundred and fifty three tests. From that we had about eight hundred and ninety of them being men, and about eight hundred and thirty or forty being women. So, for the first time we had more men coming in to get tested than women. That speaks to our campaigns and awareness. On National Testing Day we saw a lot of couples coming out to get tests and that shows a change in behavior, a change in awareness. So, the more we get better health seeking behavior, the more we can attach ourselves to the other ninety and work on adherence to the medication and work on viral suppression and so we gradually create the change we need to see in Belize as it relates to the HIV response.”
Andrea Polanco
“How do you build on this success – especially as it relates to the men being more involved and getting tested?”
Arthur Usher
“And again we do want to thank all our sponsors for that because we have all these agencies that tie in to create this holistic program. In terms of building on our success, we now have to look forward to World AIDS Day. Through-out the year, the Ministry of Health and BFLA and all these other organizations do testing. The National AIDS Commission we do our schedule test on World AIDS Day and that program would have to be dynamic in terms of continuing our success and continuing the reach that we need to reach. It is building behavior change without building dependency and that is important because a lot of people get dependent on certain things and only change if you give me something or if you do something. I think the promotions and the awareness that we are doing are creating the behavior change without feeling like you have to give people something. So, they are doing it of their own accord, so I think that is the real change.”
