Call for people to know their HIV/Aids status to prevent unnecessary death
Avoiding testing for HIV may lead to high mortality rate.
Various non-profit and government organisations gathered at Skinner Street Clinic, near Steve Biko academic hospital on Thursday to commemorate World Aids Day in remembrance of those who lost their lives to the disease.
The day, aimed at raising the awareness of the Aids pandemic, is commemorated globally on December 1 annually.
According to the organiser of the event Boikanyo Motsumi, they hosted the commemoration to raise awareness, promote health and increase accessibility to health services. This became an easy task as organisations such as Community-Oriented Substance Use Programme, Basadi Ba Moshito Foundation, Centre for Sexualities Aids and Gender and the Department of Health took part.
The event was hosted against the backdrop of the World Health Organisation’s latest statistics, which estimated that 38.4 million people were living with HIV, 1.5 million people acquired HIV while 650 000 died from HIV-related causes in 2021.
He said one of the major concerns was that some people do not know their HIV status because they do not want to be tested, which on the other hand put them at an unnecessary risk of losing their life early – something that could be avoided.
“The earlier you know your status the better.”
He urged residents to get tested to be able to make informed decisions about taking care of their health and that of their loved ones.
“Go to your nearest health facility or any NGO that offers HIV services to get an HIV test.”
He said this was necessary to help the government succeed in its efforts of suppressing the virus.
“The good thing about the suppressed viral load is that it limits the chances of transmitting to others.”
He said the bad thing about avoiding testing for HIV was that you might be HIV positive without knowing it, adding that such problem increases the burden on the health centres.
“This is because you will be infecting others without knowing it,” he said, adding that the mortality rate associated with Aids increases as a result of failure to test for HIV and get treated on time.
Do you have more information about the story?
Please send us an email to editorial@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114.
For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites: Rekord East
For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram
