More men than women go to Tebelopele

MONKAGEDI GAOTLHOBOGWE
Staff Writer | Monday December 6, 2010 00:00

 

Just as they were being dismissed as lacking the guts and spines to stand an HIV test, Batswana men are now being vindicated by the latest HIV report, the National AIDS Council report, which says more and more men are doing voluntary HIV testing at Tebelopele facilities than women. However, a very big number of women do their HIV testing at government hospitals and clinics where they are routinely tested especially during pregnancy. At government hospitals and clinics the ratio of women who test to their male counterparts is 1:2.

A fresh report, unveiled on Friday by the National Aids Coordinating Agency (NACA) at the Annual National AIDS Council, points out that the men are doing better than the females in voluntary HIV testing at the Tebelopele centres. In fact the trend has been there since 2008.

In its summary, the report notes that for this quarter as was the case in the last quarter, Tebelopele registered more male first-time testers than their female counterparts.

Of all first-time testers for this quarter, July-September 2010, 50.9 percent were male, while 49.1 percent  were females. The report also says that generally there has been an increase of 21.6 percent in the number of first time testers in the quarter, July-September 2010, from 11,238 to 15,563.

According to statistical data in the latest report, it is not like men are just beginning to heed the HIV test message now; the report shows, with colourful tables and graphs that the percentage of men testing for HIV at Tebelopele testing centres has never been as poor as it is often projected. The NACA report for the period January-March 2008, shows that 7,895 women tested alongside an impressive 7,289 men.

In the following period, April-June 2008, 9,555 men tested for HIV for the first time at Tebelopele, against 9,418 women. July-September 2008 also saw more men (7,511) than women (7,186). Throughout that year, men continued to lead as more and more of them tested for the first time than their female counterparts. October-December quarter saw 7,101 men going for HIV testing compared to 6,570 women did the same. .

At the beginning of 2009, the number of men testing for the first time reached 10,002, while the women stood at 9,928.  July-September period however saw both women and men closely tied at 9,375 for women and 9,334 for men.

Both sexes were very close again at 9,239 women and 9,218 men by the first quarter of 2010(January-March), before the men opened a gap in the subsequent quarter, April-June, with some 6,218 men against 5,020 women. When the last statistics were gathered for July-September 2010, the men continued to lead the women-folk in HIV testing as 7,928 tested against approximately 7,635 females.

Interestingly HIV prevalence amongst the male folks who tested for the first time is at an average of 12 percent, while their female counterparts have a prevalence rate of 15 percent. The men's prevalence rate fell from an average of 15 percent in 2007 to 12 percent by the third quarter of 2010.

Meanwhile, the number of women testing for HIV via Routine HIV Testing (RHT) continues to be higher than the men, mainly because the Routine HIV Testing caters for other testing needs such as PMTCT (Prevention of mother to child transmission), rape, etc.  This programme is offered at all government health facilities across the country and therefore has wider reach than Tebelopele, BOCAIP and BOFWA, according to the NACA report. A total of 34,418 people tested through the RHT in the period July-September, amongst them 22,349 women, and 12,069 men. RHT results, contrary to Tebelopele, show that prevalence rate of the HIV is now at 16.2 percent, an increase of 2.6 percent from the last quarter. This development has led to new fears that Batswana might be relapsing, going back to the old ways of not practising safe sex.