Fear of being tested – What are the risks of testing?
Fear about the consequences of testing, lack of access to care and treatment, and the stigma of being HIV positive can stop people from getting tested . Life-extending medication has drastically reduced the number of US AIDS deaths in the past two decades from about 51,000 in 1995 to about 16,000 in 2001. The earlier a person knows they have HIV, the earlier they can start treatment which can slow HIV down and delay AIDS. It is harder to treat people if they are at the very late stages of HIV infection. For a woman considering having children, treatments can be extremely effective in having a child without HIV. There are many sites where confidential testing and counselling are available. The US Centre for Disease Control maintains a database providing names and addresses of clinics and medical facilities providing these services all over the country. That database is available at www.hivtest.org Some advantages of getting tested are: – modern treatment methods can increase the duratio
