News

South African lay counsellors can give HIV test

12 July 2010

Lay counsellors in South Africa can now legally perform HIV tests, but delays in paying them and shortages of test kits are threatening a national campaign to scale up voluntary HIV testing and counselling (VCT).

Before new regulations came into effect in May 2010 only nurses were allowed to administer finger-prick HIV tests, but AIDS activists had long argued that this not only added to an already heavy work load, but could also hamstring the VCT campaign aiming to test 15 million South Africans by 2011.

South Africa’s new legislation requires counsellors to undergo three hours of training before being added to a database of healthcare providers allowed to perform “the prick”. Dr Thobile Mbengashe, chief director of HIV and AIDS in the Department of Health, said they would not be allowed to perform other tasks, such as drawing blood.

Civil society groups, including the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), a local AIDS lobby group, and the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa, have welcomed the new legislation.

Read more at IrinPlus News.