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HARARE, Zimbabwe, July 2, 2004 — In a landmark event, nine members of Zimbabwe's parliament (MPs) were tested for HIV at a PSI New Start voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) center. The bold step was meant to encourage people to learn their HIV status through counselling and testing and to reduce the stigma attached to HIV/AIDS. The MPs were accompanied by national and international news media as they made their way to a New Start center in Harare. Each was counselled and tested privately. Individual MPs chose whether to disclose their HIV status, and a few did despite PSI encouragement for them to keep it confidential. The decision to "Get Real" was not an easy one for the MPs. "It took us two years to come to the decision to go for voluntary counselling and testing as a group of parliamentarians," said Blessing Chebundo, the chairman of the Parliament Portfolio Committee. PSI/Zimbabwe's New Start centers have spread throughout Zimbabwe with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and British Department for International Development (DFID) to become the second largest VCT network on the continent. These centers provide opportunities for people to discuss HIV/AIDS-related concerns in strict confidence with professionally trained counsellors and undergo voluntary testing. The MPs comprise the cross-party Health Portfolio Committee and had approached the director of the Public Personalities against AIDS Trust to coordinate this impressive event. The Parliamentarians' move to undergo voluntary counselling and testing, and to make public their decision to do so, is expected to promote wider uptake of VCT and help to reduce denial and stigma. PSI/Zimbabwe continued the momentum of the group testing with a print ad encouraging others to follow the example of the MPs and learn their status. New Start was launched in the spring of 1999 with only one center, and has since grown into a network of 20 centers throughout the country, plus four mobile units which target rural areas not served by a full-time site. The number of average monthly clients served has increased from 230 in 1999 to more than 11,500 in 2004. These MPs are not the first public figures to use their VCT experience in a public way. In 2002, former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda inaugurated PSI's first VCT center in Zambia by going through the VCT process. In 2004 in Uganda, Regional Governor Stephanus Goliath and his wife went for a public HIV test at a New Start VCT center in Keetmanshoop. The political figures hope that by practicing what they preach, they'll motivate others to be tested and for communities to talk more openly about HIV and AIDS.
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