First you have to know your status, it sounds silly I know but let us be real for a second. If you get tested and know your status that will be responsible of you, taking responsibility for your life and the lives of those you care about.
With the AIDS international conference tasking place in our back yard, I figured the best to come out of this conference will perhaps be an increased number of people testing. This will reduce the number of mortalities because people will take medication in time.
People suffering from HIV are more vulnerable to TB so it is important that you get tested for both TB and HIV. The scary part is that 73% of people who are HIV positive develop active TB.
Unsafe sex remains the highest transmission mechanism and this risk is even higher among drinking young people, #recklessnessMustFall. With the recent study showing young women between the ages of 15 and 24 are being infected at a rate of 2000 new infections per week. This makes this age group the most vulnerable, and the sad part to this is that these young women are infected by older man who should be more responsible.
The stigma around this epidemic remain high, this is something that is a threat to an effective treatment and containing of the virus. Sex workers and homosexual are also in high risk RESEARCH INDICATED THAT this is due to the bad treatment these groups experience at the clinics and hospitals.
Please practice safe sex, get tested and join hands in fighting this epidemic.
