Counseling must precede testing for HIV/AIDS

Counseling is one of the most delicate aspects of dealing with the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The delicate feature is the actual information that is conveyed to HIV-infected persons and to the general public, people who may or may not be infected. There are three general areas in which counseling takes place, namely, testing, transmission, and treatment. Each area will be dealt with in a separate installment in this series. In fact, the counseling pertaining to testing will be presented in two segments. This installment will deal with pretest counseling; the next installment with post-test counseling.