Abstract:

More than 80% of HIV-infected adolescents live in sub-Saharan Africa. AIDS-related mortality has increased among adolescents 10 to 19 years old. The World Health Organization has cited inadequate access to HIV Testing services (HTS) as a contributing factor to AIDS-related adolescent deaths, most of which occur in sub-Saharan Africa Tanzania being one of country with high adolescent HIV-burden according to UNAIDS Tanzania 2017 HIV prevalence among women aged 15 and above is 5.5, and of young women alone being 2.1 which is higher-almost double compared to 1.1 prevalence in young men. The researcher concentrated on assessing awareness, readiness and barriers towards HIV Testing services for HIV and AIDS among secondary school adolescent girls in Nyamagana district. This study used a cross section descriptive study where researcher collected data through setting self-administered questionnaires to secondary school adolescent girls between ages of 12-21. A study involved 198 adolescent girl students who were randomly selected from 4 secondary schools in Nyamagana district. Data were analyzed by using SPSS programme and findings were presented in tables. The exclusion in the study was for those adolescent girls who were not in schools or were critically ill during the study. The beneficiaries of this study are adolescent girls and health sector in improving HIV and AIDS counselling and testing outcome among adolescent girls in Nyamagana district.

Results: Show more than half 72.2% are ready to utilize HTS while responded that they don’t want to test for HIV, 11.6% don’t know the importance of HTS while 88.4% know that HTS have importance, 50% reported that long distance to HTS center is the main barrier for them to access HTS 34.3% responded that lack of HTS services in schools is the reason for them not using HTS.

Conclusion: Effective HTS education and awareness campaigns to secondary school adolescent girls on HTS is highly needed, because of its potential benefits on both prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS in Nyamagana district and nation at large. Therefore barriers that hinder adolescent girls from accessing HTS should be primarily addressed in order to facilitate smooth environment for them to get HIV education, prevention, testing and Treatment.