AIDS Healthcare Foundation

AIDS Healthcare Foundation

Visitors of the night clubs got tested for HIV. A new, not entertainment-related item has appeared in the programs of Yekaterinburg night clubs. Now visitors are tested for HIV. During its very first on-site visit the mobile lab of the AIDS Center performed tens of tests. And the final part of this show turned out to... be quite dramatic.

To dance, to have a drink and…to get tested for HIV. It's easy to talk about AIDS to the reggae rhythms. People start gathering near the car looking very much like an ambulance. They are told that on top of everything the test is free of charge. “If you learn about it early you still can do something about it. Until you do not know – it’s difficult”, - says Tory Mjasnikova, visitor of the night club.

Having left the doctors, the young people have time to convince those who are older. They use such childish tricks as – the procedure is not scary at all, just like a mosquito sting. "They draw blood and in 15 minutes you get the result”. Let’s give it a try? Things happen…– one visitor is convincing another one.

Indeed the test takes no longer than 15 minutes. Finger stick, a drop of blood. Waiting for the result – that’s the most difficult part.

The door of the mobile lab is only a couple of meters off the night club door. Today one half of the visitors decide to walk these 20 steps.. Out of 60 tests three tested positive.

The likelihood of mistake is one hundredth of percent. That is why, three men below 30 leave the party early. They acquired HIV by the most common routes.

"We counseled them. Two of them very injecting drug users, and the third one probably got infected through sexual route " - said Ksenia Gogoleva, counselor of the Sverdlovsk AIDS center.

Those who tested negative will receive gifts like T-shirts, pins and condoms.


Olga Kalinina, Vesti Urala
October 26, 2009Read More