Abstract: HIV testing and counselling remains to be the primary doorway to accessing treatment and prevention. Stigma associated with HIV creates negative mindset and convictions about HIV positive individuals. The partiality involves labelling a person as socially inadequate and excluding them from societal activities. While stigma refers to an attitude or belief, discrimination is the behaviour that results from those attitudes or beliefs. In Kenya, stigma level is highest in school settings where adolescent spend most of their time. The mind-set people have regarding the infection creates perceived fear which acts as a barrier for the adolescents to go for HIV test. The Same stigma creates challenge for adherence to treatment which suppresses the viral load for those who have tested positive given the unfriendly environment. The scenario does not provide room for this age group to go for counselling, to take HIV test, enlist on and adhere to treatment. Most of the available innovations and programs are not contextualized to fit the adolescents in boarding school set up, particularly self testing kits. Albeit the effectiveness of the innovation, stigma and school schedules remain to be a barrier that hinder adolescents from relying on such technology. This paper argues that HIV stigma is not an issue of the past but also the present, and should be prevented from being a future agenda.
Keywords: HIV stigma, Adolescents, Treatment, Testing, Counselling.
Title: HIV Stigma among the Kenyan Adolescents: A Barrier to Tests and Medications
Author: WILBRODAH ORINA
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3156 (Print), ISSN 2348-3164 (online)
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