Government creates awareness with testing campaign. San Salvador (EFE).- Thousands of Salvadorans went Friday to hospitals, shopping centers and parks for free HIV testing as part of a government campaign to bring down the levels of infection.
On National HIV Test Day, being held for the third straight year, more than 60,000 Salvadorans were expected to take advantage of the free testing, Deputy Health Minister Violeta Menjivar said.
“I say with great satisfaction that in El Salvador, as everywhere else in the world, we are getting ready to conquer this epidemic,” Menjivar said during a ceremony at a Salvador mall kicking off the day’s activities.
She said that the new leftist government of President Mauricio Funes, which took office June 1, is committed to covering 100 percent of the cost of medication for HIV/AIDS sufferers.
The deputy minister said that at present the country has only 80 percent coverage with antiretroviral.
She said that the administration is committed to a “focus on prevention” based on sex education and the “eradication of stigmas.”
“We have made the human and political decision to work against stigmas,” said Menjivar, who together with Health Minister Maria Isabel Rodriguez took the test after presiding over the event.
For his part, the national director of the HIV/AIDS Program, Guillermo Galvan, told the press that since 1984, when the first case of the virus was detected here, until December last year, more than 22,000 cases of infection have been confirmed.
He added that in 2009 another 692 people have tested positive, an average of four per day, though he gave no details of fatalities.
“HIV is the most democratic virus in the world - it doesn’t care if you are white, if you’re rich or if you’re poor. Anyone can get it,” the official said, asking Salvadorans to “overcome fear” and take the test.
Other authorities stated that apart from the official toll of people, who have been infected with the virus, they believe there is another 25 percent of that total made up of people who have the disease but never got the medical testing to find out.
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