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HIV/AIDS pandemic -- The conspiracy of `silence'

Rasheeda Bhagat

IMAGINE your life this way. You get up in the morning and breakfast with your three kids. One is already doomed to die in infancy. Your husband works 300 km away, comes home twice a year and sleeps around in between. You risk your life in every act of se xual intercourse, so quoted a Time cover story an African woman. She adds, You go to work past a house where a teenager lives alone tending young siblings without any source of income. At another house, the wife was branded a whore when she asked her hus band to use a condom, beaten silly and thrown into the streets.

Accompanied by a photo essay with heart-reading images from the southern African countries of the devastation caused by HIV/AIDS, the magazine tells its readers, This is a story about AIDS in Africa. Look at the pictures. Read the words. And then try not to care.

No doubt the words and images haunted readers for quite a while. But life moves on. In the humdrum of routine existence, millions of people not personally affected by the HIV infection continue to live in the conviction that AIDS is something that will n ever touch their lives. The typical denial syndrome. According to statistics released by UNAIDS a joint UN programme on HIV/AIDS on the eve of World AIDS Day on Nov. 30, 800,000 people would be infected by HIV in 2001 in South and South-East Asia. The estimated AIDS-related deaths would be 400,000. Chilling.

But returning to the denial syndrome, and moving closer home, while HIV has infected people across sectors and classes from industrialists and businessmen, professionals, to slum dwellers and villagers it remains well-hidden,

If one Magic Johnson happens, things will change, and people, especially youngsters, will start thinking that if they too indulge in risky behaviour they can get infected by this virus, says Dr Suniti Solomon, Director of YRG Care, a Chennai-based NGO wo rking for the prevention and control of HIV/AIDS.

She says that though things on the HIV/AIDS front in India have not become as frightening as she expected them to some time ago, the problem is our very large population. Even if 2 per cent of the population is infected with HIV, we are talking of a very large number. This is not so in the rest of the world. In some African countries, over 30 per of the population is infected by HIV/AIDS that is at the rate of one person in every three but in terms of numbers it may still not mean much vis-`-vis Ind ia.

Elaborating on the denial syndrome and expressing concern over youngsters, particularly those susceptible to alcohol and drugs, Dr Suniti says that this class of people always believes that AIDS is not something that can affect it.

Now we cannot say that an industrialist or a professional or a college going student will not be aware of the risk from HIV. But when they are under the influence of alcohol, and indulge in casual sex with women whom they have known for a long time, the tendency is to think that `She cannot be infected; after all she is one of us. By the time they discover that their premise was totally wrong, it is too late.

In this background, a revelation a la Magic Johnson might shake people out of their complacency and false notions of safety. But the biggest problem in India, when it comes to combating and controlling the spread of HIV/AIDS, is the stigma attached to it . Dr Suniti recalls that sometime ago when, at a major conference in Chennai, it was mentioned that because of the stigma people were hesitant to come out and say they were HIV-positive and a speaker asked the audience if any of them would declare it, a couple volunteered. The media, including photographers, were present in large numbers at that conference. Before we could ask them not to take pictures, photographs were taken and published too.

The result was that this particular couples house was burnt down because people decided that they had indulged in promiscuous behaviour and hence had got the infection.

But this conspiracy of silence, on fears of a backlash from society, is being tackled by some African countries. During a visit to Uganda last year, one was shocked to know how openly its politicians and other leading lights were talking about HIV/AIDS. Government bigwigs, including politicians, members of Parliament and senior bureaucrats had come out openly to talk how this infection had affected their personal lives and relationships, and how it was still possible to control it from further progress ing through timely intervention and effective medication.

Recently, Malawis Vice-President said that leaders of African nations that were groaning under the burden of HIV/AIDS could take the initiative to stop its further spread now instead of waiting for billions of dollars to come in from the developed count ries.

The only positive thing about the AIDS pandemic in Africa is that more and more of the leaders have realised it will be politically incorrect not to come out openly and address the issue of the frightening virus in their individual countries. For some, this might continue to be lip service rather than any serious intent to address the grave problem, but nevertheless, it is a beginning.

Countries such as Uganda and Senegal have displayed the political commitment to address the issue, and its leaders, without taking the high moral ground, are openly talking about how to protect the adolescents from the deadly virus. Presidents and Vice-P residents of some African nations even volunteer to take an HIV test and declare the result. The people are educated on how to protect themselves and their loved ones from this infection.

Sex is no longer considered a private act that should not be discussed because this is the largest route through which the infection spreads. Africans are educated on how it is perfectly safe to work side by side with people who are HIV positive because you cannot get the infection just by contact or merely being close to the infected.

While these are, indeed, encouraging signs, the HIV/AIDS numbers in the African continent continue to soar and have reached scary heights. UNAIDS estimates that in 2001 some 3.4 million new adults and children would have been infected in Sub-Saharan Afri ca, and some 2.3 million died. In North and Middle-East Africa, the number of new infections will be 80,000 and AIDS deaths about 30,000.

In this gloomy global situation, the one continent that stands out with absurdly low numbers is Australia. UNAIDS estimates that in 2001 there will be only 500 new HIV infections in Australia and New Zealand, and only 120 deaths.

Response can be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in