ANONYMOUS HIV testing is to be introduced in Jersey by the end of the year.
The news follows the latest fears expressed by ACET, the local Aids charity, who are concerned about the growing number of young people being diagnosed with HIV.
Health Minister Ben Shenton (pictured) has announced that the so called unlinked anonymised testing (UAT) will be up and running by December.
Blood samples taken from patients aged 16 to 60 will be automatically tested for HIV and hepatitis C unless the patient specifically withholds his or her permission for the test. However, if the samples test positive for the potentially fatal diseases, the patients will not be told because the testing is being carried out anonymously and the testers will have no way of knowing who the patient is.
Article posted on 8th September, 2008 - 2.59pm
3 Article Comments
Are you really surprised at what is happening among your young people? You’ve seen the way a number of them behave, are we really to assume that they suddenly become responsible adults when they go to have sex just because the small issue of possible death is on the cards.
Remember, it won’t happen to them! Parents need to be taking more steps to instill values and self-worth into their children and thereby protect them a bit more, after all they ARE kids.
its terrible that children or teenages are suffering aids hiv, syphillis, and other sexually transmitted deseases,they teach them sex at school at a very young age,first and formost teach them the terrable con sequences of sexualy transmited deases first.to much sex on television, porno on computers easy ascees to children. anon hiv tests ,and paintent not told outrageous . they can go out and infect others.this is not right ,i blame the government. one dose,nt see a good film on tv anymore, sex sex sex i feel very sorry for the children of today.
I can not believe this ridiculous idea.. I thought the whole point of anonymous testing was to be able to find out your HIV status privately, without the knowlegde of the whole world.
If found to be infected one would have more choices available to them while their status remained confidential…..Could this system not accomodate both of these objectives?
You can blame the tele’ all you want,but, at the end of the day it is about education, not only from the school system but from within the home…..
If anyone thought that a small , isolated island in the middle of the sea, that had large amounts of short term visitors from all around the world, was not the perfect incubator for a large undetected epedemic , was kidding themselves….
Ohhh, i forgot, we are talking about Jersey