I arrived back in South Africa on Tuesday morning. After spending a couple hours regrouping in Pretoria, Becky and I headed west to Mafiking, the provincial capitol of the Northwest Province. The purpose of the trip was a meeting with the Department of Health, Department of Basic Education, Office of the Premiere and several other governmental and NGO representatives to discuss the beginning of testing for HIV in secondary schools and evaluate their readiness to begin testing in schools in February. The schools campaign is an important part of the greater HIV Testing Campaign aimed at testing 15 million South Africans in a year. The South African government has set this goal and has both dedicated an impressive amount of resources towards achieving it and harnessed the power of the active NGOs in the country to make clear that this is their top priority.
It's estimated that 95% of children in schools are HIV negative (many children are not in school so I'd imagine the rate of school aged children is much higher) but testing in schools is more than just identifying HIV positive students. The counseling component is equally important so that these kids can stay negative. For many kids, this will be their only interaction with health care personnel and people who know their status are much more likely to engage in healthy behavior and stay negative.
The meeting was fascinating and a little overwhelming as the magnitude of the task became clear. We also managed to have a little fun since one of the main hotels in town was a casino. We played blackjack and obviously they increased the table minimum when they saw Americans coming. Fortunately, the increase was to 25 R which is about $4 a hand!
Back in Pretoria now and excited for the weekend to catch up on sleep a little.
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