THE National AIDS Programme Secretariat (NAPS) in the Ministry of Health has established an STI/HIV/AIDS hotline as an additional service at its Rosignol, West Bank Berbice treatment site.

It is available on telephone number 330-2335 from Monday to Friday every week between 08:00h and 16:00h, with a lunch break between those hours.

The facility will enable persons who want information on any aspect of those diseases to call and speak with an experienced counsellor and get answers and advice whether it is affecting the individual calling or someone else.

NAPS National Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) Coordinator, Mrs. Deborah Success-Hall said that, as with all such facilities, callers are afforded absolute anonymity.

There are and will be no requests for the callers to identify themselves in any way, she assured, adding that conversations are and will be confined entirely to whatever issue, relating to STI/HIV/AIDS, callers may have and information or advice given.

Success-Hall said the trained telephone counsellor can also refer the caller to other sources of information or support if the need arises.

In use a little more than two weeks now, the telephone system is in addition to the VCT services and the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission Programme (PMTCTP) for AIDS already being conducted at Rosignol Health Centre.

Success-Hall encouraged the general public to make full use of that and other related things on offer at Rosignol, as a means of contributing to the reduction of the spread of HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) within the West Berbice community and, indeed, the country as a whole.