First HIV tests on remote Principe island

The 5,000 inhabitants of the West African island of Principe were given their first opportunity to take HIV tests on Thursday. According to the Kaiser Network news service, a team from the international medical group, Medicos do Mundo, offered tests for the HI virus at a hospital on the tiny island, some 140 km from its larger sister island of Sao Tome. "This is a small and isolated island, but people here should be given exactly the same chance as everyone in the bigger island of Sao Tome to receive information about HIV and get access to tests," said Bruno Cardoso, the NGO's coordinator in the archipelago. In 2003, Medicos do Mundo became the first organisation to carry out tests in Sao Tome, which has a population of around 150,000 people. Some 4,000 tests have been carried out, with a prevalence rate of 2.4 percent indicated, but Cardoso said the rate could be higher because most testing was done in urban areas where people were better informed about AIDS.