Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The national Ministry of Health is concerned that only a handful of men know their HIV status. This means many cases detected in men are treated when it is too late hence their higher of risk passing the HIV virus to other people.
Moro Lawrence, the deputy director for surveillance and research in the Ministry of Health, says a growing number of men in the country have no idea about their HIV status.
“Most men believe that when the wife is pregnant, she gets tested and when she is found to be negative, they take that result that because my wife is negative, I am [also] negative. They don’t know that the HIV virus has a stage,’’ he said.
According to Moro, this situation can happen especially when a wife tests negative during the window period at a time the husband has already contracted the virus.
“Men do not come to the health facilities for HIV testing because they say they are busy and yet they are the ones passing on the virus,” he added.
Alarming cases
According to Moro, HIV cases diagnosed in some parts of the country have reached an all-time high.
“We look at self-testing as supplementary testing because the current prevalence rates that we have in the country are still so high.”
As an intervention to encourage more people to know their HIV status, the ministry of health has introduced self-testing kits, designed to encourage people to get tested for HIV.
The Ministry of Health is making HIV self-test kits available through public and private health facilities and selected pharmacies for free.
According to the data provided by the ministry of health, HIV prevalence in South Sudan stood at 2.2 per cent as of 2021. However, Moro says this percentage has dropped due to various intervention measures.
He says: “In the previous estimates that we had for 2020, the number was found to be 2.3 per cent and currently the prevalence has dropped to 2.1 per cent but this figure is derived from a small percentage of people who were tested and know their HIV status.”
According to the UNAIDS 2020 report, “there is worry about the increasing trend in the number of new HIV infections (19,000), with only one in every four people living with HIV knowing their HIV status.
The City Review said some men in Juba blamed the phobia on the societal stigma.
Abdallah Margani, who is not yet married, observed that many men in his community fear HIV testing because of the perceptions people would likely develop about them.
“Most men fear HIV testing because of the society we live in. When people get to know that you are HIV positive, they run away from you, so this is a very big challenge,” he said.
Another man who requested anonymity said he is scared of testing for the virus because he has a lot of family responsibilities and, if found positive, he would struggle to meet the family obligations.
Through a multi-sectoral and public health strategy, the ministry of health has continued to scale up comprehensive HIV prevention, care, treatment, and support services in collaboration with development partners.
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