BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - AS the Federation joins the rest of the world in observing December 1 as World AIDS Day, local health officials have indicated that they are seeing more people being screened for the deadly virus.
This announcement was made today (Dec. 1) by Head of the National AIDS Programme, Gardenia Destang-Richardson while responding to questions from media operatives.
Celebrated under the theme ‘Hands Up for HIV Prevention’, local health officials capitalized on it and undertook one of their prevention activities at the Department of Health, located in the Bladen Commercial Complex.
One such activity was free HIV/Aids testing where a number of people were screened and health officials were engaged in interactional sessions with students during the week.
“From Monday to yesterday, Wednesday, we would have gone to the schools and focus prevention and abstinence while talking to the young people about delaying sex and making informed choices,” Destang-Richardson said.
This year, health officials used the Rapid Testing devices to carry out tests, which took just about 10-15 minutes to give a finding, as was observed by this reporter.
Destang-Richardson noted that tomorrow they would be carrying out another demonstration exercise where persons would be shown how to use protection.
Further, she called on those who would have missed the first screening done today to utilize the second one that would be conducted tomorrow at Independence Square.
According to Destang-Richardson, officials in St. Kitts and Nevis who are monitoring the spread of the virus have disclosed that “this year has been a fantastic year for us to see the number of persons participating in the testing. Our office numbers are constantly ringing with persons making appointments to do their test or retest”.
“There is that three-month window that we try to remind people of even though you may test today. Even though you may test negative today, that would only give us a baseline because it takes at least three months for your body to produce HIV antibody,” Destang-Richardson said.
As more tests are carried out locally, the Department of Health has found that they have seen new cases popping up. And Destang-Richardson intimated that “unfortunately, there are more persons living with the virus that have not been tested and they are walking around HIV-infected, and that is why we encourage persons to know their HIV status”.
In a report recently published by a regional news agency, St. Lucia News Online, it indicates that in 2015 St. Kitts-Nevis and Dominica reported less than 20 new HIV infections and fewer than 10 AIDS-related deaths annually over the last five years.
Health officials in the Federation have over the last several years been making an added effort to curb the mother to child transmission of the virus.
“If there is an increase, which we suspect would be the case, is because most persons are now taking advantage of the knowledge of knowing their HIV status,” Head of the National AIDS Programme said.
Activities will continue throughout the month as the Department seeks to educate people on knowing their status.
A UN AIDS report published last month has indicated that some 18.2 million people are now being treated using the antiretroviral drug.
