U.S. Embassy Promotes HIV Testing to Employees

HARARE, Zimbabwe, August 3, 2004 — PSI has started doing for the U.S. Embassy here what it has been doing for the general Zimbabwean public for the last five years — offering HIV prevention strategies including high quality voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) services. Initial results are promising based on the percentage of workers who have followed through with testing.

Antiretroviral drug treatment is already available to all Embassy employees, according to the U.S. State Department HIV policy manual, and the Embassy wanted to encourage employees to learn their HIV status so that HIV positive employees could start on ARV treatment. Based on the Embassy's needs, PSI and the State Department agreed to an employee training program and to provide off-site VCT, allowing employees to be tested confidentially. The two-fold objective of the workplace program was to promote safer sexual behavior and increase knowledge of HIV status among Embassy employees.

Training sessions were held for managers, supervisors and peer educators. Managers and supervisors were trained because they play a key role in the workplace and can educate those who work with them. The topics covered in the training sessions included implications of HIV among the employees and its impact on the workplace, basic counseling skills for managers to deal with those infected and affected by HIV, key features of the Embassy's HIV/AIDS policy and legal issues related to HIV in the workplace.

The three-day training program for peer educators provided detailed information on HIV/AIDS prevention strategies, sexually-transmitted infections, opportunistic infections, nutrition, VCT, post-test clubs and home-based care as well as sessions to develop communication and counseling skills. A site visit to one of PSI's VCT centres is part of the training to expose them to what really happens during VCT sessions.

Following the training sessions, PSI and the Embassy planned for VCT sessions to be conducted for all employees at an off-site location in order to provide a comfortable and confidential environment for counseling and testing. Groups of 15-20 employees were driven to the venue several times a day over a period of five days. All employees attended group information sessions and were then given a choice to attend individual VCT sessions which consisted of pre-counseling, HIV testing and post-counseling. Following the group information session, which was mandatory, the employee could choose to withdraw from the process.

Qualitative and quantitative feedback shows that the program was successful. A total of 220 people attended the mandatory group counseling sessions. Almost 43% of those went on for pre-test counseling and 33% with the testing. However, the numbers improved steadily over the five days, reaching 90% on the last day of the program. This was likely a function of increased awareness among the employees as people who attended the sessions went back and talked to their colleagues. The percentage of employees who went in for testing also consistently increased over the five days, from 17% on the first day to 50% on the last day.

— Yasmin Madan, PSI/Zimbabwe

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PSI/Zimbabwe's network of New Start voluntary counseling and HIV testing centers is the second largest of its kind on the African continent. PSI's discreet and high quality voluntary services were recently enlisted by the American embassy in Harare to counsel and test their staff.