Free Mobile Testing Centers Pop up for World AIDS Day
In honor of the 26th annual World AIDS Day, several pop-up locations offering free HIV tests sprouted up around Los Angeles.
In East L.A., Zoraida Hernandez brought her boyfriend to get tested because she said she feels it’s important to protect herself from any STIs.
“I get tested all the time,” said Hernandez. “Anytime I get tested, it’s usually when I have a new sexual partner, and [this] is my new sexual partner, and he’s never been tested before.
With more than 35 million people living with HIV today, people are working to raise awareness of the virus. One way to prevent the spread of the virus is by getting tested. People living in L.A. can go to clinics, hospitals and even mobile testing centers.
“In our mobile truck,” said Gabriela Leon, HIV Mobile Testing Unit supervisor, “we go around L.A. county and offer free HIV testing.”
A doctor from AltaMed, a healthcare service that provides free testing, says getting tested is especially important for L.A. residents. The city is at high risk for HIV. The CDC says more than 60,000 people are living with the virus in Los Angeles.
“A high-prevalence community in the United States is defined as one in which more than one out of every thousand inhabitants has the infection,” said Scott Kim, director of AltaMed HIV Services Medical. “We have many urban communities that actually meet that definition in the United States. Certainly L.A. is a high-risk community.”
One barrier to getting tested is the stigma associated with it. Some people feel too embarrassed to visit a clinic.
“The biggest problem that we find is that people have a lot of shame and stigma,” said Leon. “[They feel] self-stigmatization because they feel like others are looking at them going in a truck and [worried about] what people are going to think about them.”
Hernandez’s boyfriend admits he was nervous about getting tested, but both say it was worth getting done.