Door-to-Door Testing Curbs Stigma. 24/11/10

Stigma remains one of the major impediments in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

AllAfrica

Fourteen months ago when John Mayiteki tested positive for HIV, the deadly virus that causes AIDS, his main worry was the kind of treatment and reaction he would get from his relatives and public.

"The first thing I thought was to commit suicide," Mayiteki, 28, said on November 10 during the Philly Lutaaya Day celebrations at Nakasongola Boma grounds.

In the late 1980s, music icon Lutaaya became the first person to publicly declare his HIV status but more than a decade later, stigma remains one of the major impediments in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

However, in Nakasongola district, there has been a major breakthrough in the campaign against stigma on HIV/AIDS patients, thanks to the introduction of door-to-door testing and counselling services.

Through a community based outreach programme, 14,000 people have, since September last year, tested for HIV and received counselling. Nickson Atuhaire, the Integrated Community Based Initiative (ICOBI) supervisor and counsellor, says the number includes children, women and men.

ICOBI, a non governmental organization, has set a target of at least 20,000 people to be tested and counselled by next September. Field teams consisting of a lab assistant and a counsellor, visit homes and counsel residents before encouraging them to test for their sero status.

According to Teddy Namara, a lab assistant and counsellor with ICOBI, many people accept to test after they have been counselled. The testing procedure is convenient and people get their results in 10 minutes.

She says even people in fishing communities like Lwampanga, where the prevalence rate is high, have embraced the services. In each sub county covered, ICOBI officers form Discordant and Positives' Clubs, encouraging people to go public about their status, live and think positively.

However, Atuhaire says they face both logistical and human resource challenges in the sparsely populated district, which has an estimated 150,000 people (mostly cattle keepers, fishermen and a few peasant farmers).

For instance, Atuhaire says they have had to employ more field officers because homes are spread distances apart, a factor that has resulted in increment on the transport costs. The other challenge is that those tested and found positive have to wait longer for a decision on whether they should be put on Anti Retroviral Treatment (ART).

Dr Daniel Kirunda, the in-charge of Nakasongola Health Centre IV, says the facility doesn't have a CD4 machine, which analyses the infected person's body defence system. Samples are taken to Kampala at the Joint Clinical Research Centre (JCRC), where the process lasts a minimum of three weeks.

In the past one year, the health centre has enrolled 1,500 clients for free treatment. They receive free drugs and counselling services facilitated by the Uganda AIDS Commission (UAC), ICOBI and the ministry of health.

Two doctors and two clinical officers (a nurse and a counsellor) have been employed at the centre to specifically run the ART clinic. To encourage more people to test for HIV, Kirunda says they have also introduced mandatory testing for pregnant women and mothers who visit the facility's maternity wing.