WTOP is marking Pride Month by showcasing the people, places and important issues in the LGBTQ+ communities in the D.C. area. They reached out to Whitman-Walker to speak with Ramatoulaye Keita, our director of community health and wellness to speak about June 27th National HIV Testing Day — a day to encourage HIV testing so that people can know their status and those who test positive can promptly begin treatment — and how Whitman-Walker is making sure D.C.-area residents know they have options.
Excerpt:
“It’s so important to get tested, it’s important to know your status. Linkage to care is vital,” said Ramatoulaye Keita, director of community health and wellness at Whitman-Walker Health.
The clinic has been a leader in LGBTQ+ health care for more than 50 years and began providing care for AIDS patients when the epidemic struck in the early 1980s.
“HIV is still an epidemic, especially in D.C. We still have … about 11,000 folks living with HIV in D.C. So we want people to get preventive care, we want to reduce HIV acquisition in communities and to ensure that people who are in care are actually virally suppressed, and people who are positive actually linked to care,” Keita said. “The first step to do that is to get tested.”
