On Sunday ,July 23rd, as the 19th International AIDS conference opened in Washington DC, I got very curious and wanted to know how news on this very
important event was been reported by local and international media houses.
Undertaking this task, little did I know the discovery that my curiosity will
lead me to. Talking of discoveries, they were all very bitter; in the first
place in the local media it was business as usual with very little or no
allusion being made of this year’s international conference on AIDS and then
there was this paper on the conference by French news channel ITele which in my
opinion was much more centered on the statistics and the fact that this
conference was being held in the USA than on the plight of persons living with
HIV/AIDS(PLWHA) and the ever growing number of children which AIDS daily render
orphans in this part of the world.
35 Million Deaths and 35 million infected persons most of whom live in Africa with a majority of them being women. The above among others are the plethora of figures given by ITele’s reporter in the above cited paper. Since its discovery in the early 90s using statistics as the key elements to describing the effect AIDS on people around the world has gained grounds to the extent that the only thing most people can remember about AIDS is the number of people it is killing. I remember that my while at secondary school when asked to describe what AIDS was, my class mates and I will almost ever start with something like this: AIDS is a very dangerous disease that kills millions of people around the world.
At the time I described AIDS as above, I had of course never met a person living with HIV/AIDS, growing up and knowing persons living with HIV/AIDS and the precarious conditions in which these people live in Cameroon has led to a glaring reality that what really matters in talking about HIV/AIDS is not the statistics but how those living with the AIDS virus are treated in their families, communities, and countries.
AIDS is still considered in some parts of Cameroon as being a punishment for one’s sins and those suffering from the disease are considered as outcasts and excluded from mainstream society. This stigma against PLWA has not only heightened people’s fear for the disease but also increased the rates of infections as most people in Cameroon have not done and are not willing to do an HIV/AIDS screening test. A few who go for the test and are tested positive really ever inform their family members of their status neither do they seek medical advice and so die in silence. This fact has been pointed out by the numerous health surveys conducted in Cameroon with statistics from the 2011 health survey showing that the Northern regions of Cameroon (densely populated with high illiteracy and early marriage rates) having the highest number of PLWHA in Cameroon.
While it is true that to face facts, we need to face the figures, when the figures overshadow the facts, full understanding of the gravity of a problem is at risk. While I understand the excitement of media persons at this year’s international conference on AIDS being held in the USA, something which was impossible before 2009 when the ban imposed on zero positive persons in the early 90s was lifted, I am deeply convinced that beyond statistics there is a scaring reality which we must face: AIDS is committing more atrocities than the so many we pretend we know.
Having closely followed Cameroon’s strategy to fight against HIV/AIDS over the years, I can comfortably say that: it doesn’t suffice to make antiretroviral free, how those living on these anti retroviral drugs are perceived and treated also matters. Let’s face reality, if we continue to consider the fight against AIDS to be the scientists sacred cow, we are going to woefully fail, because the fight against AIDS requires much more than pure science, it requires a fundamental change in the way PLWA are being currently perceived. Stigma kills more than the HIV virus itself and needs to be tackled with equal measure as the search for a cure to AIDS.
It is time we face and denounce the scaring reality of stigmatization, guilt, persecution, pain, and death that is lived daily by millions of people around the world because they are infected by HIV/AIDS. Being infected with the HIV virus in most cases in this part of the world mean forfeiting one’s right to education, health, and shelter. Therefore, I am convinced that while it is true that AIDS kills zero positive persons around the world, stigma, guilt, and persecution, and ignorance fastens these deaths. This year’s international AIDS conference will live to be remembered if and only if its participants go beyond figures and face this scaring reality.
35 Million Deaths and 35 million infected persons most of whom live in Africa with a majority of them being women. The above among others are the plethora of figures given by ITele’s reporter in the above cited paper. Since its discovery in the early 90s using statistics as the key elements to describing the effect AIDS on people around the world has gained grounds to the extent that the only thing most people can remember about AIDS is the number of people it is killing. I remember that my while at secondary school when asked to describe what AIDS was, my class mates and I will almost ever start with something like this: AIDS is a very dangerous disease that kills millions of people around the world.
At the time I described AIDS as above, I had of course never met a person living with HIV/AIDS, growing up and knowing persons living with HIV/AIDS and the precarious conditions in which these people live in Cameroon has led to a glaring reality that what really matters in talking about HIV/AIDS is not the statistics but how those living with the AIDS virus are treated in their families, communities, and countries.
AIDS is still considered in some parts of Cameroon as being a punishment for one’s sins and those suffering from the disease are considered as outcasts and excluded from mainstream society. This stigma against PLWA has not only heightened people’s fear for the disease but also increased the rates of infections as most people in Cameroon have not done and are not willing to do an HIV/AIDS screening test. A few who go for the test and are tested positive really ever inform their family members of their status neither do they seek medical advice and so die in silence. This fact has been pointed out by the numerous health surveys conducted in Cameroon with statistics from the 2011 health survey showing that the Northern regions of Cameroon (densely populated with high illiteracy and early marriage rates) having the highest number of PLWHA in Cameroon.
While it is true that to face facts, we need to face the figures, when the figures overshadow the facts, full understanding of the gravity of a problem is at risk. While I understand the excitement of media persons at this year’s international conference on AIDS being held in the USA, something which was impossible before 2009 when the ban imposed on zero positive persons in the early 90s was lifted, I am deeply convinced that beyond statistics there is a scaring reality which we must face: AIDS is committing more atrocities than the so many we pretend we know.
Having closely followed Cameroon’s strategy to fight against HIV/AIDS over the years, I can comfortably say that: it doesn’t suffice to make antiretroviral free, how those living on these anti retroviral drugs are perceived and treated also matters. Let’s face reality, if we continue to consider the fight against AIDS to be the scientists sacred cow, we are going to woefully fail, because the fight against AIDS requires much more than pure science, it requires a fundamental change in the way PLWA are being currently perceived. Stigma kills more than the HIV virus itself and needs to be tackled with equal measure as the search for a cure to AIDS.
It is time we face and denounce the scaring reality of stigmatization, guilt, persecution, pain, and death that is lived daily by millions of people around the world because they are infected by HIV/AIDS. Being infected with the HIV virus in most cases in this part of the world mean forfeiting one’s right to education, health, and shelter. Therefore, I am convinced that while it is true that AIDS kills zero positive persons around the world, stigma, guilt, and persecution, and ignorance fastens these deaths. This year’s international AIDS conference will live to be remembered if and only if its participants go beyond figures and face this scaring reality.
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