HIVSA in partnership with the Provincial Health Department in Gauteng will be sending out 2 million health related mobile messages to the general public in the province in support of this year’s World Aids Day initiative celebrated on Saturday, December 1st.

HIVSA’s mobile phone application called hi4LIFE operates through the Mxit portal, Please Call Me adverts and star menu (*120*6336#).

The Department’s theme for the initiative is “Safe Sex with Men and High Risk Groups”. The focus of the mobile messages are intended to create awareness around the theme through promoting issues such as medical male circumcision as one of the methods to reducing the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. Various other messages related to HIV/AIDS testing and counselling will also be shared.

The project coordinator of the HIVSA, Thulani Machere, believes that mobile distribution is the “new frontier” in communication, especially since it is inexpensive and easily accessible to many.