HIV Testing made Easy at the Comfort of Your hostel, here’s How

The Ministry of Health yesterday launched a self-testing campaign, targeting the youth mostly aged 20-34 majority of who, are university students at an estimated tally of 30,000.

Traditional testing procedures are shunned by these youths due to the stigma and social judgment that is attached to them.

Dubbed Check Now, the campaign has been rolled out to various Universities in Uganda including; Makerere, Uganda Christian University, Nkumba, Makerere University Business School, Kampala International University and Ndejje to serve as a pilot for future programming of the project and for other health services to be extended to higher institutions of learning.

The test kit comes with a whole lot of privacy and convenience to the students who previously took their health by “luck” owing to the sexual activeness of the targeted age range.

Testing Procedure

The Check Now self-test kit is a one-time-use gear which depends on a blood sample from a finger prick. The slight blood fluid is then placed in a tube which forms a reaction with an acidic chemical within 10-15 minutes to produce a result.

A line or two appear on an inbuilt strip; given the status of your blood. If two red lines appear on the test stick, there are high chances you are HIV positive – whether the second line is faint or not. If only one red line appears, it means you are HIV negative all thanks to the science of the kit.

The test kit users are still advised to perform another test at an accredited health facility (and also seek treatment) most especially in the event that the test kit gives a positive result, just to be more certain about their HIV status.

The Health Minister, Dr Ruth Aceng while launching the campaign, revealed that the Ministry has trained and deployed a team of up to 15 peers on use of the test kit. These teams will further train their colleagues in the learning institutions, how to use these kits.

“These peers will help their colleagues understand how the self-test kits work and take them through counseling sessions before and after testing once one is found to be HIV-Positive, they will refer to the nearby health facility for treatment.” Dr Aceng said.

The Uganda AIDS Commission report indicates that, in 2021, young people between the age of 10 to 24 accounted for about 45% of the 54,000 new infections.