“I came out at age 17 and my mother took me to a psychiatrist to try to ‘mend’ me,” said one gay man living in Sofia, who asked not to be identified. The consequences of being outed could be devastating, especially outside the biggest cities, said gay men and LGBT+ health experts. HIV testing vans used in rural areas were also highly visible and associated with stigma, he said. People who are unaware they have HIV are more likely to have unprotected sex, risking the spread of infection further, found a 2014 study in Mozambique.Īlthough HIV tests are anonymous, patients in Bulgaria were often required to identify themselves when they entered a health center and reveal where they were going, said Momchil Baev, the sexual health program manager at Single Step. Testing is a key part of combating HIV and AIDS: people who do not know they are positive will not get access to treatment to preserve their own health and may also put partners at risk. “If this continues, it will turn into an epidemic,” said Professor Hristo Taskov from the National Center for Infectious and Parasitic Diseases. In Bulgaria, the number of gay and bisexual men being infected is rising by nearly a third year-on-year, showed data from the health ministry presented at a conference last week. HIV infections are falling across the world, but eastern Europe is bucking the trend - there, the annual number of new HIV infections has roughly doubled over 20 years. Going to a testing facility outside of Sofia in a way equates to revealing to that small community that you live in that you are gay.”

“People don’t get tested because of stigma,” said Ivan Dimov of Single Step, the LGBT+ youth charity behind the project.

Seeking to target sexually active gay men who might not otherwise get checked, the charity offered free HIV self-testing kits to all Grindr’s users in the eastern European country. SOFIA, Bulgaria (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - When an LGBT+ charity wanted to do something about soaring rates of HIV among gay men in socially conservative Bulgaria, they turned to an unlikely ally - the dating app Grindr.

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