Health officials promote HIV testing
It’s no secret that a powerful weapon in the war against HIV is testing. And while more Belizeans than ever are getting tested, the numbers still fall short of what health officials would like to see. Today they tried to do something about it. News Five’s Kendra Griffith reports.
Kendra Griffith, Reporting
The National Health Information and Surveillance Unit reports that in the first quarter of 2007, two thousand four hundred and forty-four Belizeans took an HIV test, but the Ministry of Health and National AIDS Commission want to improve on those numbers.
Ruth Jaramillo, Technical Director, National AIDS Commission
“The idea is to improve access to testing so that the population gets to know their status and hopefully access care and support and that way we save more lives.”
Previous efforts to encourage Belizeans to go under the needle include broadcasting public service announcements, opening voluntary counselling and testing centres, holding outreach testing, and instituting the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission programme. But now they are working on a new plan … it’s called provider initiated testing and counselling.
Ruth Jaramillo
“This one is a unique approach because it’s calling for healthcare providers to take a more assertive approach in getting persons to test within the health setting. So if you are going for a routine test or a routine check-up, the physician or the attending nurse will offer you the test.”
Today a group of almost thirty private and public healthcare providers participated in a consultation session to discuss idea.
Ruth Jaramillo
“What we are seeking is the recommendations from all the stakeholders. It’s important to engage them even at this early stage. But what is even more important is to have everyone recognise that a lot of the services are already in place and it’s not something new, it’s not out there. It’s just a matter of just changing the approach to offering services in Belize.”
The consultation was supported by USAID and the Central American AIDS Project. Kendra Griffith reporting for News Five.
According to NAC Technical Director Ruth Jaramillo, other measures to encourage testing include the integration of the voluntary counselling and testing centres into the primary care clinics.
