INLSA
Premier Helen Zille
Premier Helen Zille is keen to pursue a controversial, lottery-based HIV testing campaign because the verdict is in on the 16 day pilot programmeme.
The incentive-based campaign tested 15 096 people and added 37 operating testing sites in the Western Cape from November 25 to December 10, 2011. Spokesperson for the premier’s office, Zak Mbhele, said yesterday that the government was still gathering final statistics as evidence of the programme’s overall success, but used the example of Central Karoo to show an increase in HIV testing as a result of the campaign.
“In the Central Karoo district, 600 people tested in just three days,” he said. “That’s normally the average figure they have in a month.”
Anyone tested during the 16 days of the campaign was entered into a raffle, and six names were drawn to receive prizes – five R10 000 winners and one grand prize winner that received R50 000. Contrary to speculation, winners did not have to test positive, they only had to test.
Mbhele thinks the numbers speak for themselves and believes the initial uproar about the campaign was a common response to something new and untested.
The normal approach to HIV education in the country revolves around people’s “good will to get tested,” he said. “Now there is the realisation about message fatigue that people have around HIV education and public awareness… we couldn’t leave [testing] to chance.”
“Even small incentives can have quite major influence on the behavioral choices people make,” Mbhele said. “You can influence the choice architecture in how people make decisions.”
Before implementing the programme, the premier’s office met Harvard University consultants to study behavior choices.
“We looked at how people make choices and decisions in their everyday lives,” Mbhele said.
There are no existing plans to organise a similar campaign in the near future, but according to Mbhele, “the premier would like to continue along this line of HIV testing campaigning.”
“She still must have a high level discussion with the senior officials in the health department,” he said. “[The programme] must have the budget and human resources capacity to handle it before we start it.”
The programme took heat from organisations like the SA Medical Association. Its spokesperson Mark Sonderup is “concerned that testing is made out to be the end all, be all.”
It’s not-so in that respect [the campaign] is not the most optimal use of resources,” he said. “No one can refute the fact that numerous people were tested, but for me, the programme isn’t sustainable,”
“Undue emphasis is being placed on this magical ‘let’s get people to test’,” said Sonderup.
abigail.dennis@inl.co.za
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Article source: http://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/zille-keen-to-pursue-hiv-raffle-campaign-1.1297182