Uganda to Conduct Door-to-Door HIV Testing

To gain a more accurate picture of how many Ugandans are living with HIV, the government plans to conduct door-to-door HIV testing. Joseph Musinguzi, a senior medical officer in the country's AIDS Control Program, was quoted Monday by the government newspaper New Vision as saying that within a few months, health teams will move door to door, interviewing randomly selected people and testing them for HIV. The National HIV/AIDS Sero-Survey is expected to answer critics' charges that Ugandan HIV/AIDS figures are not accurate because they are obtained only from pregnant women. Citizens selected by random sampling to be tested under the new initiative will sign consent forms, and their names will not be recorded. Their blood samples will also be checked for syphilis, herpes simplex virus-2 and hepatitis B.

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