June 1985: The first HIV antibody test is authorised in Germany. Researchers triumph, but the German AIDS organisation advises: Don't get tested! 25 years later, there are test weeks.
In June 1985, fear becomes certainty: the first HIV test is available in German surgeries and hospitals. Now everyone can find out whether they carry the virus or not. The test is an important milestone in the fight against the new deadly disease. But Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe advises: Don't get tested!
Why, it is argued, should a positive test result scare people? After all, anyone who is infected can't do anything about the virus anyway, because treatment is still a utopian dream in 1985. Those who are untested can hope. Those who receive a "positive" result must despair. As late as 1989, the German AIDS Service Organisation therefore emphasised: "The test harbours the great danger of turning healthy people into patients."
Michael Jähme from AIDS-Hilfe Wuppertal was also sceptical in the 1980s: "There was a wave of hysteria sweeping through the country. It was downright dangerous to publicise an HIV infection." It was not until 1990, when he was hospitalised, that he took a routine HIV test. Result: positive. "I was shocked," says the now 51-year-old. "Back then, HIV meant death in instalments."
25 years later, in June 2010, Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe has long since made peace with the HIV test. With the ICH WEISS WAS ICH TU (I KNOW WHAT I DO) test weeks, it even advertises it. This is because HIV can now be kept under control if it is recognised in good time. "A test is worthwhile because the therapies now make a relatively normal life possible," says gay counsellor Dirk Sander.
Michael Jähme is also alive. He works as a counsellor at AIDS-Hilfe Wuppertal. Through his work, he knows that for many people, the test is still a hard nut to crack. "For those who see their sexuality as something reprehensible, the HIV test is also very threatening."
According to estimates by the Robert Koch Institute, this is one of the reasons why around 25 to 30 per cent of HIV-positive people in Germany do not know that they are infected. A third of HIV diagnoses are only made when HIV has already caused serious damage to the body.
The reluctance to take the test is apparently also a generational issue: younger people are usually diagnosed with an infection much earlier. The highest "clear-up rate" is achieved by gay positives under 30 who live in large cities: Almost half of them have the positive test result no later than six months after infection.
"We have to continue to ask ourselves: What can we do to reduce discrimination against people with HIV?" emphasises DAH consultant Dirk Sander. "This is the only way we can take away people's fear of the test." After all, the fear is unfortunately not unfounded. "It's not so much the fear of the disease that makes the decision so difficult as the fear of social rejection."
(Philip Eicker)
All information about the HIV test at iwwit.de
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Photo credits "Waiting room": Rainer Sturm/pixelio.de
