Abstract:

BACKGROUND. HIV and its clinical manifestation of AIDS are considered major global health challenge. HIV can be transmitted through exchange of variety of body fluid from infected people such as blood through blood transfusion, during pregnancy, delivery and through breast feeding can lead to transmission from mother to child, semen and vaginal secretion through sexual intercourse and through anal intercourse. Early diagnosis of HIV infection leads to early linkage to HIV care and treatment which ensures early attainment of optimal virological suppression and restoration of immunity. HIV VCT uptake remains low especially among the vulnerable youth groups such as university students. Low testing rate to HIV is attributed by a lack of comprehensive HIV knowledge, inaccurate perception of personal risk, other youth considered HTC to be neither necessary nor important, fear of the consequences of having a positive test result, stigma from peers and providers.

OBJECTIVE: : The main objective of the study was to determine knowledge on modes of HIV transmission, benefits of early diagnosis of HIV infection and uptake rate of HIV testing among undergraduates at CUHAS.

METHODOLOGY: The descriptive cross sectional study was carried out among undergraduate’s students at Catholic University of Health and Allied Sciences. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to the students, and they were allowed to participate willingly after reading and understanding the consent form. Obtained data were entered in SPSS software and then were analyzed.

RESULTS: This study found that the majority of students had adequate knowledge on modes of HIV transmission 298(90%), on the issue of antiretroviral treatment as an effective means of reducing community incidence of HIV 290(87.6%) and more than three quarters of the respondents had HIV test 25(76%). However 162(64.3%) of them had a very long interval of 2 years or more after their HIV test, suggesting that they had never done a repeat test. Likewise a quarter of those who did not do so because they were afraid of needles. Additionally 159(48%) did not know that when the maternal HIV viral load was undetected, then that was the best time for a woman to conceive to prevent HIV maternal to child transmission. Overall most of the respondents 300(90.6%) correctly identified the benefits of early testing and early linkage to HIV care and treatment.

CONCLUSON: This study has shown higher knowledge on the modes of HIV transmission, benefits of early diagnosis of HIV and early initiation of antiretroviral treatment. However knowledge gaps were identified in the areas such as HIV transmission through tongue kissing and the required viral load in prevention of maternal to child HIV transmission.