FEWER men in Zimbabwe are kin to get voluntary HIV testing in comparison to their female counterparts, director of HIV/Aids and TB unit in the Ministry of Health Owen Mugurungi has said.
WONAI MASVINGISE
In an interview with NewsDay yesterday, Mugurungi said the country’s statistics of HIV testing showed that more women than men were getting tested.
“Statistics show that more women than men have been tested in the past 12 months and the reasons behind this are many and they include the fact that women tend to use health facilities more than men,” said Mugurungi.
“Usually, when a man falls sick he would rather wait at home until he gets better and when you see a man visiting a health facility, usually he will now be very sick. Men are not as health conscious as women.
“Women are different in that when they fall sick they go to clinics earlier. Women are also keepers of the family and so when children fall sick it is usually the woman who will take them to hospital and so they are more exposed to HIV testing than men.”
Mugurungi added that women tended to get tested as they were encouraged to test for HIV when they fall pregnant to ensure the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of the virus.
“Also, men tend to send their partners to go and get tested and there is this misnomer that when the woman tests negative then the man assumes he is also negative, this is not true. This is why the number of men who get tested is low,” he said.
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According to statistics from the Health Demograghic survey carried out by the ministry of health and its partners which was released last year, 62% of men had never been tested while only 40% of women had never been tested.
PSI Zimbabwe, a non-government organisation that runs New Start centres which offer voluntary HIV testing around the country also noted that more women than men were getting tested for HIV. The organisations’ information officer Paidamoyo Magaya said: “For 2012, a total of 359 339 people accessed the services.
“At least 177 873 were males and 181 466 were females. As at August 2013 a total of 284 706 clients have been tested. 143 777 were females and 140 929 were males.”
