Indonesian Doctor Recommends Getting HIV Test at Least Once in Lifetime

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Data from the Indonesian Health Service for March 2023-March 2024 show that there were 59,424 people living with HIV in Jakarta. About 40,000 of them are regularly taking antiretroviral or ARV drugs.

Taufan Harun Habibie, an internal medicine specialist at Tebet Regional Hospital in Jakarta, advised the public to have a blood test to detect the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) at least once in their life.

"Everyone should be tested at least once in their lifetime. Or people with a sexually active life," he said in an online event on "The Importance of HIV Testing: Early Detection, Right Treatment, Bright Future," hosted by the Jakarta Provincial Health Agency on Monday, August 19, 2024.

For key populations, or people with risky behaviors such as drug use, deviant sexual relations, and a history of sexually transmitted infections, testing needs to be done more than once.

"When there's risky behavior, what used to be once in a lifetime can become more frequent because we don't know when we were exposed. It is recommended to get tested every three to six months," Taufan said.

A requirement for marriage certificates

Currently, HIV testing is required for couples getting married in order to obtain a marriage certificate from the KUA. According to Taufan, this test is one of the government's efforts to detect HIV at an early stage.

In the future, there is a plan to require couples getting married to undergo examinations to detect multiple diseases, considering that HIV is currently a national and even international burden and its prevalence is still high.

ANTARA

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