Swaziland: African Couples Urged to Get HIV "Love Test"

Population Services International, UNICEF, and UNAIDS since April have been conducting a nationwide, free HIV testing campaign targeting Swazi couples. Though approximately 26 percent of Swaziland's population have HIV, just one in four people, mostly women, knows his or her HIV status.

"If partners get tested separately, they may not disclose the results and not get the support they need," said Dominic McNeill, PSI Swaziland's spokesperson. "We wanted to turn HIV on its head and move away from the fear-inducing campaigns we've seen in the past, which don't work. Instead, we focus on love, saying that it is love that should be contagious and couples should get tested together."

The "Love Test" initiative received $3 million this year in funding from the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, and to date has spent $35,000 on radio, print, and television advertisements. To address the testing gender imbalance, PSI said it has most successfully targeted men where they often congregate.

"In Swaziland it is difficult to convince men to get tested as it makes them feel inferior," McNeill explained. "We go to the places where men have their cattle disinfected and also work extensively in churches. We even have a testing facility in one of the countries' prisons," said Iulian Circo, PSI's country director. "Men are the head of the family and we try to get them to own up to that responsibility," Circo said.

Already, testing among couples has grown 25 percent since April and 400 percent among the general population since last year, PSI Swaziland said. The "Love Test" campaign is expected to last through this year. PSI is also hoping to team up with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to promote male circumcision, which reduces female-to-male HIV transmission risk by up to 60 percent.

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