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"Helping to fight AIDS requires more
than just lip service"
The
Star (www.thestar.com.my)
(04/12/05)
WORLD AIDS Day and International Disabled Day were commemorated two days
apart this week. The first was on Thursday and the second on Saturday. Maybe
not that many people noticed, or cared.
Let’s chew on some numbers: Worldwide, some 40.3 million people are now
living with HIV, 4.9 million of them added in the last year alone. And 3.1
million adults and children died of AIDS-related illnesses last year.
In total, more than 25 million people have died of AIDS since it was first
recognised in 1981.
The latest UN report reveals a ray of hope: in certain countries, sustained
efforts have yielded decreases in HIV incidence in a number of categories.
Yet some of these tried and tested methods, especially in the area of
prevention, continue to face resistance here for reasons ranging from plain
ignorance to religious concerns.
And so the scenario of doom and gloom continues.
As AIDS activist Marina Mahathir reminds us in her column “Musings” this
week: Not everybody who has HIV is a drug user, sex worker or gay, as the
17.5 million HIV+ women, mostly married to only one partner, will attest.
Our Sunday Star focus today on the situation in Kelantan, for example, zooms
in on how almost 88% of the HIV+ women treated at the Kota Baru Hospital
between January 2002 and October 2004 were infected by their husbands.
And the women say they need to keep their HIV+ status a secret in their
communities because people still think that AIDS is a shameful disease
contracted by sinful behaviour such as engaging in illicit sex.
Even though the women kept defending their innocence, they dared not test
the sympathies of their families or communities.
This is a global battle and our role must go beyond lip service.
Here in Malaysia, we need to seriously grapple with the issue in more
realistic terms before the numbers overwhelm us.
Let us be one of those countries that can, on World AIDS Day, be able to
tell the rest of the world about the progress we have made on our own
battlefront. For that is the only way the global war against AIDS can be
won.
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