Some people live and learn, and some only live.
Wise people learn from their mistakes, wiser people learn from other people's mistakes.-
I don’t like statistics; not that I undermine the need for it. Its just that every time I hear this word in relation to HIV, I get too emotional.
So the KAIS report was released last week and its findings left Kenyans talking about nothing else but HIV for about a week now. I have done numerous interviews and answered a number of emails and phone calls from people who wanted my organizations opinion on the findings of the report.
I did my research, listened to few other people’s responses to check that they were in line with what I really felt was good enough to talk about and once I was sure we were speaking the same language echoed what every other HIV organization or activist said on the matter.
You know statistics tell you a lot of stuff like the number of people infected; the number of people infected but don’t know their status or the number of people accessing treatment and lots of other issues.
What statistics doesn’t tell you though, is the pain and suffering of a person living with the Virus and has AIDS, or the emotional turmoil of one who just discovered they have HIV or the pain and suffering of the family members who watch their loved ones waste away and die or even the pain the orphans go through once their parents are gone. Statistics don’t tell you this or the positive stories of those who spent up to a year sick in bed and regained their health. This is what we deal with everyday; very little justice is done to this aspect of HIV.
I heard about the KAIS report on the news and the first reaction I had was sadness. The shift in prevalence from 5.1 to 7.4 was for me too high. For a moment there I thought
“Oh God there are more people going to walk in our shoes.” You see I have lived with HIV enough to stop dwelling on the negative and I go about telling people how living positively really helps, but believe me I wouldn’t wish this virus even on my worst enemy.
What struck me about the report though was the number of people who tested HIV+ even after insisting they were not. These people make up the number of Kenyans walking on our streets that don’t know their status, aren’t seeking treatment and are potential partners to some non suspecting person.
Just as expected, some fingers started pointing at People Living with HIV (PLHIV). Most of the interactive radio shows had the survey as a topic of discussion and people had so much to say.
“These people are the ones who are infecting others” one person called into one radio station.
“Yeah they are given medicine so they don’t look thin anymore.” Another caller echoed
“They need to be tagged so we can identify them” yet another caller
“I feel these people need to be put in camps separate from all of us.” Yet another caller.
I believe in respect of ones opinions but I won’t lie that these didn’t disgust me.
Every week I get emails or talk to a lot of PLHIV. Most of them confess to me that they haven’t disclosed their HIV+ status to their spouses, families, friends or even colleagues at work. I wonder what these callers would have the same opinion if they found out that those going to the camps or getting the tags would be their wives, husbands, daughters, sons, sisters, brothers or friends.
I will not try to justify or talk for all the PLHIV. What I know though is that when you test HIV+ and seek treatment, you are counseled and advised on the need to have protected sexual contact. You are given tips on how not to infect your partner, what to do incase of possible exposure like seek treatment for PEP (Post Exposure Prophylaxis). But that’s not the only reason we decide to use the rubber as much as some of us hate the damn thing, it’s because it protects us too. We are educated on the risks of secondary or re-infections (getting infected with another strain of the virus). There are some of us who take these advices seriously.
We talked about these responses in the support group. Guess what? All of us want our relatives and friends to know our HIV+ status. But you see the stigma discrimination and the social injustices that are associated with PLHIV make us go into hiding or stay in the shadows.
If declaring my status means I lose my job, my social standing in the community, lose my family and friend and worst of all my dignity; then why would I want to tell? Before the society accepts that HIV is a viral condition that can be managed. Before they stop calling us ‘these people’ like we are from a different planet then no one will disclose their status. This is a potential risk for more infections by the way.
I wonder why someone thinks we need to be tagged so they can identify us. If I met you at say a party and you found me attractive enough to do ‘you know what’, why do you think its not your responsibility to take care of you health. I think we all need to stop pointing fingers and start taking responsibility for our own actions. This isn’t the era of naiveté. In this age and time; every adult is responsible for their own sexual health. If you aren’t responsible enough then please Abstain.
Most people are deciding not to know their status because they feel safe in the ignorance. “What I don’t know will not hurt me.” My friend once told me when I asked her to go for the test. “I’ll wait to get sick first.” She went on.
This attitude accounts for the 57% of Kenyans who have never tested for HIV and the 26% of those who insist they know they are HIV- but have HIV+ results when tested.
These findings should be a wake up call for the Government, Civil society organizations and all stakeholders to look into their programs and find out what we aren’t doing best or what new things or strategies can we formulate.
It’s not a time to forget the gains we have made so far but to learn from what we have been doing and to improve on the areas we haven’t done very well.
I heard someone on radio say
“For every one person we put on treatment, there are two more people getting infected.” Having even one person on treatment is a gain. But we need to ensure that as we put people on treatment, we don’t have any new infections.
We need to scale up our prevention programs. Make our Behaviors Change Communication (BCC) consistent, Scale up our VCT uptake by having more mobile VCT’s and reaching out to as many vulnerable groups as we can without prejudice.
This coupled with positive prevention (prevention of infection by those who already know their status) and Meaningful involvement of people living with HIV&AIDS (MIPA) just might reduce these rates.
I don’t like statistics; not that I undermine the need for it. Its just that every time I hear this word in relation to HIV, I get too emotional.
So the KAIS report was released last week and its findings left Kenyans talking about nothing else but HIV for about a week now. I have done numerous interviews and answered a number of emails and phone calls from people who wanted my organizations opinion on the findings of the report.
I did my research, listened to few other people’s responses to check that they were in line with what I really felt was good enough to talk about and once I was sure we were speaking the same language echoed what every other HIV organization or activist said on the matter.
You know statistics tell you a lot of stuff like the number of people infected; the number of people infected but don’t know their status or the number of people accessing treatment and lots of other issues.
What statistics doesn’t tell you though, is the pain and suffering of a person living with the Virus and has AIDS, or the emotional turmoil of one who just discovered they have HIV or the pain and suffering of the family members who watch their loved ones waste away and die or even the pain the orphans go through once their parents are gone. Statistics don’t tell you this or the positive stories of those who spent up to a year sick in bed and regained their health. This is what we deal with everyday; very little justice is done to this aspect of HIV.
I heard about the KAIS report on the news and the first reaction I had was sadness. The shift in prevalence from 5.1 to 7.4 was for me too high. For a moment there I thought
“Oh God there are more people going to walk in our shoes.” You see I have lived with HIV enough to stop dwelling on the negative and I go about telling people how living positively really helps, but believe me I wouldn’t wish this virus even on my worst enemy.
What struck me about the report though was the number of people who tested HIV+ even after insisting they were not. These people make up the number of Kenyans walking on our streets that don’t know their status, aren’t seeking treatment and are potential partners to some non suspecting person.
Just as expected, some fingers started pointing at People Living with HIV (PLHIV). Most of the interactive radio shows had the survey as a topic of discussion and people had so much to say.
“These people are the ones who are infecting others” one person called into one radio station.
“Yeah they are given medicine so they don’t look thin anymore.” Another caller echoed
“They need to be tagged so we can identify them” yet another caller
“I feel these people need to be put in camps separate from all of us.” Yet another caller.
I believe in respect of ones opinions but I won’t lie that these didn’t disgust me.
Every week I get emails or talk to a lot of PLHIV. Most of them confess to me that they haven’t disclosed their HIV+ status to their spouses, families, friends or even colleagues at work. I wonder what these callers would have the same opinion if they found out that those going to the camps or getting the tags would be their wives, husbands, daughters, sons, sisters, brothers or friends.
I will not try to justify or talk for all the PLHIV. What I know though is that when you test HIV+ and seek treatment, you are counseled and advised on the need to have protected sexual contact. You are given tips on how not to infect your partner, what to do incase of possible exposure like seek treatment for PEP (Post Exposure Prophylaxis). But that’s not the only reason we decide to use the rubber as much as some of us hate the damn thing, it’s because it protects us too. We are educated on the risks of secondary or re-infections (getting infected with another strain of the virus). There are some of us who take these advices seriously.
We talked about these responses in the support group. Guess what? All of us want our relatives and friends to know our HIV+ status. But you see the stigma discrimination and the social injustices that are associated with PLHIV make us go into hiding or stay in the shadows.
If declaring my status means I lose my job, my social standing in the community, lose my family and friend and worst of all my dignity; then why would I want to tell? Before the society accepts that HIV is a viral condition that can be managed. Before they stop calling us ‘these people’ like we are from a different planet then no one will disclose their status. This is a potential risk for more infections by the way.
I wonder why someone thinks we need to be tagged so they can identify us. If I met you at say a party and you found me attractive enough to do ‘you know what’, why do you think its not your responsibility to take care of you health. I think we all need to stop pointing fingers and start taking responsibility for our own actions. This isn’t the era of naiveté. In this age and time; every adult is responsible for their own sexual health. If you aren’t responsible enough then please Abstain.
Most people are deciding not to know their status because they feel safe in the ignorance. “What I don’t know will not hurt me.” My friend once told me when I asked her to go for the test. “I’ll wait to get sick first.” She went on.
This attitude accounts for the 57% of Kenyans who have never tested for HIV and the 26% of those who insist they know they are HIV- but have HIV+ results when tested.
These findings should be a wake up call for the Government, Civil society organizations and all stakeholders to look into their programs and find out what we aren’t doing best or what new things or strategies can we formulate.
It’s not a time to forget the gains we have made so far but to learn from what we have been doing and to improve on the areas we haven’t done very well.
I heard someone on radio say
“For every one person we put on treatment, there are two more people getting infected.” Having even one person on treatment is a gain. But we need to ensure that as we put people on treatment, we don’t have any new infections.
We need to scale up our prevention programs. Make our Behaviors Change Communication (BCC) consistent, Scale up our VCT uptake by having more mobile VCT’s and reaching out to as many vulnerable groups as we can without prejudice.
This coupled with positive prevention (prevention of infection by those who already know their status) and Meaningful involvement of people living with HIV&AIDS (MIPA) just might reduce these rates.
1 comment:
some time ago I read an information call cancer, who spoke on these rates in African countries, and this is where we realize how bad this one country, thanks for sharing the info
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