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"New signs of hope for the HIV+"
The
Star (www.thestar.com.my)
(23/05/07)
If we continue our policy of providing almost-free treatment to
Malaysians living with HIV, we can prevent many more deaths.
Byline: Marina Mahathir
IT WAS one of those pieces of news that went both ways. At this past
Sunday’s annual International AIDS Memorial Day commemoration, I caught up
with many colleagues whom I had not seen for a long time.
One of them, from support group Prihatin for HIV-positive women in Kota Baru,
told me that they were doing well after only three years. When they first
started, they had over 100 women as members, mostly single mothers left
widowed by AIDS. Now they have over 300.
On the one hand, it was good that these women had found a place they could
go to for information, counselling and other help, as well as meet others in
the same situation.
Many of them had in fact been HIV-positive for many, many years and had led
lonely lives thinking they would always have to live hiding their status
from the world. Learning about Prihatin had given them hope.
But on the other hand, I could not help but wonder. If Kota Baru alone had
300 HIV-positive single mothers, how many more must there be in other towns
and cities around the country? Who would provide the type of help they need?
Still, there are signs of hope. Prihatin is training some other HIV-positive
single mothers in Kedah to be peer educators and to start support groups to
others like them. In Perak, the Buddies of Ipoh provide the same service to
people with HIV.
One remarkable woman, known as Kak Pi, defies every negative stereotype that
is placed on religious women by giving comfort and solace to women living
with HIV without making any judgement on them.
While these efforts are examples of “leading the way to a world without
HIV/AIDS”, the theme of this year’s commemoration, still it is hard to
ignore the fact that there have been 79,389 reported cases of HIV/AIDS since
the first one was detected in Malaysia 21 years ago. And of that, 9,155 have
died.
The truly sad fact is that none of this is really necessary. If we had
instituted realistic prevention programmes all those years ago, we would
probably have not had these numbers by now.
And if we continue our policy of providing almost-free treatment to
Malaysians living with HIV, we can prevent many more deaths as well as the
family and community devastation that comes with them.
The only snag would be the lack of political will. If the political will to
tackle HIV/AIDS slackens, we will hear nothing about AIDS in our country
except for those few occasions during the year when events such as this are
held.
If other priorities get in the way of people’s lives, the medicines to treat
people with HIV will become unaffordable again and more lives will be lost.
If effective prevention programmes lose out to political expediency,
opportunities will be lost and may never be found again.
Recently, a delegation from our Prisons Department visited Iran to see at
first hand how the Iranians tackle HIV/AIDS in the prison system. Despite
its conservative image, Iran runs both needle exchange programmes and
distributes condoms to prisoners.
Our delegation was impressed and is keen to do the same back home. The only
thing that would stymie that would be weak or non-existent political will.
In the meantime, we need to open our eyes to more hotspots, at people who
remain very vulnerable to HIV through no fault of their own. While HIV
prevention for our own people is still inadequate, what is there for those
among us whom we don’t even acknowledge exist?
What information do we provide for migrant workers who don’t speak any of
our languages? How do these messages reach those whom we don’t even
recognise such as refugees? We can’t wish them away when they are healthy,
what more when they get sick with AIDS.
My colleagues working with refugees tell me that, increasingly, they are
seeing HIV infections among them. Deporting them is no answer when there is
nowhere that will take them.
Besides prevention and treatment, the component of a comprehensive response
to AIDS that is still missing is care. Care means ensuring that people
remain productive citizens even if they are HIV-positive, with jobs and
homes and the means to care for their families.
Care includes policies that ensure stigma and discrimination against people
with HIV is simply not tolerated. It means devising policies and frameworks
that keep children with HIV and AIDS orphans in school. It involves
providing micro-credit loans to AIDS widows so they can provide for their
children.
None of this comes under the Health Ministry, the traditional domain of
HIV/AIDS. Unless other ministries also have HIV/AIDS policies, care will
forever remain neglected, and that caring society we want will never emerge.
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