Over 30s shy away from HIV testing?

MONKAGEDI GAOTLHOBOGWE
Staff Writer | Tuesday December 7, 2010 00:00

 

While the under-30 age group averaged 4,000-plus first testers from January 2009 to September 2010, the NACA report say that the over-30 category had around 2,000. The report says that 15,563 people underwent HIV testing for the first time during the third quarter of this year (July-September).

In the 30-34 age group, only 1,940 people tested for HIV for the first time at Tebelopele during the July-September period. The situation gets worse in the over-35 category.

In the 35-39 age group only 1,165 people tested for HIV for the first time, while 797 was recoded in the 40-44 age group. In the 45-49 age group, only 627 people went for HIV testing. However, there was an improvement in the over-50 category where 1,882 people tested for HIV. The 40-44 age group reached 1,000 only in 2009.

However since then, the report shows that 837 new first time testers were recorded in the first quarter of 2010, followed by 511 in the second quarter and 797 in the third quarter.  The highest number of new HIV testing among the 45-49 age group has been 826, in the first quarter of 2009, with the figure tumbling to 654 in the subsequent period.

The figure for the fourth quarter of 2009 was 669 and 620 at the beginning of 2010. In April-June this year 396 cases of new people coming for HIV test were recorded.

The younger age groups are comparably doing much better, with the 25-29 age group registering 3,978 newcomers testing for HIV at Tebelopele during the July-September 2010 period. The 20-24 age group is the most progressive in HIV testing with 4,247 newcomers.  The report shows that during the first quarter of last year the group registered the highest number of first time testers at 5,787.

This figure was to be followed by a further 4,683 during the second quarter of 2009, and another 5,124 in the third quarter of last year. Early this year, 5,579 first time testers were recorded in the age group. The 25-29 age group is averaging over 3,000 new first time testers every three months since last year. Its lowest figure has been 2,377 during April-June this year.

The 15-19 age group, which comprises junior and senior secondary school students registered 1,431 testings at Tebelopele facilities.  The NACA report shows that the number of new HIV cases among new testers has declined to 13.6 percent in the July-September 2010 period from 14 percent during the same period last year.