ROUTINE HIV TESTING COMING

The government of Zambia is formulating a LEGAL FRAMEWORK that seeks to routinely conduct HIV tests on children with or without the consent of their parents.

The project is dubbed Keep Our “Future Generation Alive through
Routine HIV Testing and Treatment for Children”.

Zambia has made great head ways in the fight against HIV/AIDS with more than 50 percent of positive person already on Anti-retro-viral treatment.

Mother to Child HIV transmission has reduced from 7 percent to 2 percent of children born positive. 

However Despite these achievements majority of children are still not being tested, research suggests that only 3 percent of children visiting a clinic are tested for HIV.

THE Centre for Infectious 
Disease Research in Zambia team developed a model to estimate the number of unidentified positive children. 

THE TEAM conducted the research in the catchment area of the 338 Government facilities in three provinces namely Western, Eastern Luapula and Southern provinces using Zambian Demographic Health survey data.

And by 2015 Zambian’s national estimates indicated that 36,000 HIV positive children were not tested. They discovered that after the age of 1 year old, children in Zambia are not routinely tested for HIV.

If HIV positive children are left untreated 75 percent will die by the age of 5 years and up to 80 percent will die by the age of 10 years.

At the moment Health Care Workers are reluctant to ask permission for testing if the accompanying adult is not the parent.


Mothers don’t allow testing, because they first want to ask permission from the husband; if the accompanying adult is a family member, friend or neighbor they don’t allow testing because they want permission from the parents.

In this regard Experts developed THREE POLICY OPTIONS that are now been looked into for further action and these are;

THE FIRST ONE is what is called REINFORCED ROUTINE HIV TESTING this option targets to Test all children regardless of age and health condition, unless explicitly refused by caregivers.

Through THIS OPTION an estimated 39 percent HIV positive from 0 to 10 years old children would be identified, preventing 52 percent child deaths.

THE SECOND OPTION is called Drives for Pre and Primary Schools;

Under THIS OPTION 80 percent of children are believed to be attending Pre-and primary school in Zambia.

This thereby estimates that 50 percent HIV positive aged 5 to 10 years old children would be identified, preventing 54 percent child deaths.

Additional Benefits to this is reduced absenteeism and improve school performance.

THE LAST AND THIRD OPTION is to screen children for HIV when enrolling for Primary School.

An estimated 35 percent HIV positive 5 year old school-starters would be identified, preventing 40 percent child deaths with additional benefits of reduced absenteeism and improve school performance.

The following are the projected benefits of each of the three outlined options;

The findings indicated that the total treatment cost for per positive children under POLICY OPTION ‘ONE’ was estimated to be around 176 United States dollars per one year.

On the SECOND AND THIRD policy options, treatment was projected to cost at 263 United States dollars per each positive child per one year.

The study also anticipates that 1,288 lives of positive children would be saved per year using option one while 336 children with HIV would be saved under option two and 64 using the third option.

If HIV positive children are left untreated, 75 percent will die by the age of 5 years and up to 80 percent will die by the age of 10 years.

Who else has done this practice in Africa, Zimbabwe and Tanzania this option increased testing up to 90 percent.

Debate on this matter has not started but it is highly expected that there will be some resistance from certain quarters of society.