Know your status and live a healthy life

Know your status and live a healthy life
Get tested today

By Kgobalale Peter Moruthane

It has came to my mind that even now many people still do not know what it means to go for HIV test. People think about many things that are not even there in this world, like after testing you are going to die, these perceptions is because they do not have information. I want to urge all young people especially students to go for VCT because it is good for them. Get tested today, and start living a healthy life. If you did not test you are really walking in a dark towards running water.

Voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) for HIV is the process whereby an individual or couple ndergo counseling to enable him/her/them to make an informed choice about being tested for HIV. This decision must be entirely the choice of the individual/s and he must be assured that the process will be confidential. VCT is much more than drawing and testing blood and offering a few counseling sessions. It is a vital point of entry to other HIV/AIDS services, including prevention and clinical management of HIV-related illnesses, tuberculosis (TB) control, psychosocial and legal support, and prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (MTCT). High-quality VCT enables and encourages people with HIV to access appropriate care and is an effective HIV-prevention strategy.

VCT can also be an effective behavior-change intervention. VCT offers a holistic approach that can address HIV in the broader context of peoples’ lives, including the context of poverty and its relationship to risk practice. VCT offers benefits to those who test positive or negative. VCT alleviates nervousness, increases clients’ perception of their vulnerability to HIV, promotes behavior change, facilitates early referral for care and support—including access to antiretroviral (ARV) therapy—and assists in reducing stigma in the community.

There is demand for VCT (people want to know their HIV serostatus). Demand can also be created when comprehensive services are made available and stigma is reduced. An increasing number of countries are rapidly addressing the quality and quantity of care-related programs. Care-related activities include increased access to ARV therapy. VCT services must be made more widely available given this dynamic context and that access to care (including ARVs) requires people to know their HIV serostatus. In most universities we have health centre and all of them they offer and facilitate VCT.