AIDS: family planning workers join the battle
Network 9(3): 4-5
1988
ISSN/ISBN: 0270-3637 PMID: 12315657 Document Number: 359862
Family planning workers all over the world are expanding their agenda to include AIDS education, counseling, and even blood tests, as they have always done for other sexually transmitted diseases. The Mexican Social Security Institute has produced a guide for family planning workers to educate them about AIDS. In Nigeria, clinics now have posters and other educational materials on HIV. In Haiti, a program to distribute condoms is being planned, and 2 trained social workers visit family planning clinics to educate and counsel people. In the U.S., Planned Parenthood has advised their clinics to counsel clients about AIDS based on risk assessments, and to provide voluntary HIV testing and referral. 350 people have been tested for HIV in the Planned Parenthood clinic in Walnut Creek, CA. The threat of an AIDS epidemic is no excuse for ceasing family planning in developing countries, because no one knows what the effect of AIDS will be on the population, but family planning is still an individual right and decision. WHO advises providers to advise that clients use 2 methods, barrier methods to protect against AIDS, and a modern effective method for contraception.