FROM next month, anonymous testing for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes Aids will be available at four more clinics.

This brings the total number of clinics that offer such tests, where patients do not have to disclose their names or identification numbers, to seven.

The move is meant to encourage people at risk of being infected with HIV to go for testing early, the Health Ministry said on Thursday.

'We recognise that there may be individuals who would like to be tested for HIV, but who would prefer not to be identitified to health-care personnel,' it said.

It noted that early detection and treatment can help delay the development of Aids and improve patients' quality of life.

Early diagnosis of people with HIV can also help control the spread of the infection, as studies have shown that those who know that they are infected will take steps to protect their partners, it added.

The number of anonymous HIV tests done here have increased from 5,639 in 2005, to 8,251 last year.

At the same time, the proportion of patients with HIV diagnosed only when the disease was advanced has dipped from 58 per cent in 2006, to 53 per cent last year.

In the first six months of this year, 154 people here were diagnosed with HIV, 11 fewer than the number picked up during the same period last year.

Anonymous HIV testing was first made available here in 1991 in a clinic run by Aids activist group Action for Aids, housed within the Department of Sexually Transmitted Diseases Clinic in Kelantan Lane.

In June 2006, it was extended to two general practitioner clinics, Anteh Dispensary at Geylang Road and Cambridge Clinic at Kreta Ayer Road.