Red Deer residents can take part in the second annual national HIV Testing Day on Thursday at the Turning Point Society of Central Alberta.
The goal is to effectively target groups disproportionately affected by the virus, said Kevin Cunningham of Turning Point, which is sponsoring the event with Primary Care Network’s Street Clinic.
One in five Canadians living with HIV are unaware they have the disease. The only way to know for certain if you’re HIV-positive is to get tested.
Rapid HIV tests will be administered Thursday using point-of-care testing kits, which provide results in less than a minute.
If a positive result is detected, blood will be taken, which will also be used to test for other sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections.
Information on the testing site locations and times is available at www.hivtestingday.ca.