Disclosure of Hiv status to sexual partners among people who ...

female clients due to ART. Despite the apparent changes, many clients are not yet open
about their resumption of sexual activity and intention to conceive. Prevention of
infection and re-infection is one of the most aspects addressed during counselling in
TASO. Emphasis is placed on safe sex through condom use , avoiding multiple partners,
discordance, disclosure, treatment of STIs, and family planning.
Counselling of TASO clients on ART includes providing information on the advantages
and disadvantages of having sex with HIV positive or HIV negative partners and the most
likely outcomes of their choices that include possibility of contracting other strains of
HIV and STIs and development of resistance by a partner who is not taking ARVs.
TASO therefore emphasizes the importance of clients disclosing their sero-status to their
primary and secondary sexual partners. Disclosure in TASO entails clients being
counselled on benefits of disclosure and making plans on who to disclose to, how and
when. Counsellors may support clients who find difficulties, to disclose their sero-status
to sexual partners as an essential component of behavioural risk reduction plans. Table 3
shows the number of sessions conducted during the 4 th quarter, 2008 and areas focused
on during the counselling such as adherence to ART, disclosure, discordance, family
planning and other aspects. Furthermore, the organization introduced home-based
counselling and testing (HBHCT) for family members of clients as an effort to increase
awareness of HIV status among clients’ partners and to improve disclosure of HIV sero-
status (TASO, 2006).
As a strategy to promote adherence, partner disclosure is a prerequisite to enrolment on
ART. If individuals require support to disclose, counsellors are usually available to help
them. In spite of these efforts made by the organization, only 12% of 2,071 sexually
active clients in Mulago centre had disclosed by the end of 2006. Moreover, in 2006, 222
out of the 2071 sexually active clients reported a pregnancy (TASO, 2007). Non
disclosure before conception may increase the chances of mother-to–child HIV
transmission if the mother does not get advice on how to reduce the risk. In addition, the
2006 report showed evidence of high discordance rate to be 60% among TASO sexually
active clients whose partners were tested during HBHCT visits. By October 2006,
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