-Health Minister urges persons to get tested
Given the rise in HIV cases, Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony, yesterday appealed to persons to know their HIV status by accessing his ministry’s free at-home HIV self-testing kits, as he announced that Guyana last year reported 449 new cases and the Caribbean some 15,000.
“In the Caribbean 340,000 are living with HIV and over the last year we would have had about 15,000 new infections. In the past year here in Guyana, we would have diagnosed at least 449 new infections,” Dr. Anthony said as the Ministry of Health yesterday launched planned activities for the month of December with World AIDS Day globally recognised on December 1. The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) can result in Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and death.
The Minister of Health emphasised that many of the new cases were preventable if persons would access the information and “understand how to prevent these infections.”
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