
Self-testing kits and vending machine drugs are helping South Africa’s battle against HIV
SOUTH AFRICA (thejournal.ie) - SELF-TESTING KITS and vending machines distributing prescription drugs are two ways that HIV treatment is being automated to reduce stigma in South Africa, home of the world’s biggest HIV epidemic.
With 7.1 million people living with HIV in the country, removing human intervention is helping experts target hard-to-reach groups like young men who are often reluctant to queue in public clinics.
Students, porters and labourers have flocked to a new HIV self-testing stand outside a supermarket in Hillbrow, a gritty district of central Johannesburg.
The project was started in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe in 2015 and expanded last year to include South Africa, which has an 18.9% HIV rate among adults.
A small team of young and stylishly-dressed “peer educators” convince men aged between 18 and 30 to take the tests, which – in a breakthrough for South Africa - are self-administered.
“It’s targeted at young men and if we have a group of young men around, we pull more people in,” said Lynne Wilkinson, an expert at the University of the Witwatersrand Reproductive Health and HIV Institute, which oversees the project.
From May, the scheme will be extended to several of Johannesburg’s bustling minibus taxi ranks which carry hundreds of thousands of commuters every day.
After passers-by complete a simple form, they are handed a pack to take into one of a row of unassuming portable pop-up tents to ensure