As the world marks the 2019 World Aids Day today, stigmatisation and
discrimination against Persons Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs) remain the
twin factors frustrating a successful fight against the dreaded scourge.
Not only have they prevented people from coming forward to know their
status and consequently commence early treatment where result turns out
positive, these factors also pose a threat to meeting the 2030 global
target to end AIDS.
For PLWHAs, the constant psychological trauma they contend with at
treatment centres and in communities where they live further makes life
difficult. In fact, the reality of living with a life-threatening
ailment finds expression daily in the discriminating and stigmatising
behaviours directed at them within their environment.
For instance, “You this dead woman, a living corpse, leave my house!”
was how Funmi Okafor, a mother of four children was welcomed as she
returned home from the hospital after receiving the news that she tested
positive to Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), after weeks of constant
sickness that defied treatment.
Okafor, who was squatting with a friend, (alongside her kids) after
the death of her husband, met her belongings outside, drenched in
rainwater, while her friend stood by the door post yelling at her to
move away with her children.
With nowhere else to put up, she was forced to move into an incomplete building as her new home.
The mother of four’s journey to this sad realisation started when she
noticed rashes on her body, while she was constantly ill and began to
lose weight in the process.
With the constant illness, which she thought was malaria fever (as
many people would think first), she, however, decided to visit a nurse,
whom she told about her constant “malaria fever.”
The nurse took her blood sample to the laboratory to carry out
malaria, typhoid, and HIV tests. And on confirming the cause of Okafor’s
ailment, the nurse, due to lack of knowledge about patient’s right to
confidentiality, refused to inform Okafor that she tested positive to
HIV, but rather spread the news around the community where she lived in
Edo state.
Determined to know the ailment that has caused her to emaciate, with
rashes all over her body, Okafor visited a general hospital, where after
the test she was pronounced HIV positive.
“I went to a nurse and told her that I had malaria fever. She took my
blood sample to the laboratory. But instead of her disclosing my
condition to me, she told my friend, who spread the rumour around. I
still was not aware of my status because she did not disclose it to me.
It was only after I went to the general hospital that I knew my
condition.
“The day I was supposed to be placed on drugs, it rained heavily, and
by the time I returned to where I squatted with my children, my host
had thrown out all my belongings. After yelling at me and calling me
names, I packed what was left of my property and moved,” she recalled.
Before long, Okafor became the butt of jokes in the community where
she lived in Edo State, and others avoided contact or any relationship
with her. Since she could not stand being ostracised like that, she
relocated to Lagos with her children.
She lamented: “It is not easy to cope with life when you are HIV
positive. My father and husband are late, while my mother and siblings
are in the village. But I was almost alone in the world before I
relocated to Lagos because everyone started deserting me,” she said.
CHINWE IKE was pregnant when she discovered that she was HIV
positive. She felt like taking her life and for several nights thoughts
of suicide assailed her, especially because she did not know what the
virus was all about, as people kept saying different things about it.
At the early stage of her pregnancy in 2006, she was on admission to a
hospital for one week before she was transferred to another hospital
for further treatment.
However, when she went into labour, her HIV status was confirmed in a
private hospital, and the doctor in charge of the case requested that
she invited a trusted relative over, who would thereafter break the news
to her in a calm manner, and get her to accept her condition.
“I decided to invite my friend, who is a nurse instead of a relative.
Unfortunately, after she heard of my condition, she went about
scandalising me to the extent that my landlady came to me one day and
asked me to leave her house. It was afterward that I discovered that it
was that my nurse friend that fed everyone with details of my HIV
status. Since my landlady insisted that I should leave her apartment, I
did,” she said.
Ike added that it was after she left the compound before she started
understanding many things about the disease, her rights as a Person
Living With HIV (PLWHA). “Just because I did not know anything I had to
leave the compound because they were threatening to kill me. Since then I
have been living with that stigma and picking up the pieces of my life.
“It is 13 years now and I am still alive. My friend told me then that
I had dug my grave, but after some years, I went back to my former
neighbourhood for them to see that I am still alive, and when they saw
me, most of them were surprised. However, because of the scandal, I lost
my job as a secretary/cashier at a company located at the Alaba
International Market, Lagos.”
Since 2001 that Chika Nnoroka discovered that she and her
18-month-old son were HIV positive, she has faced extreme stigmatisation
and discrimination, not only in her community but also at medical
facilities.
She narrated, “The stigmatisation and discrimination got so intense
that I did not believe that I and my son would survive. People were
keeping away from us, even the doctors and nurses were all stigmatising
people living with HIV to the extent that most of us were finding it
difficult to go to the facility to access treatment.”
Nnoroka said women were more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS stigmatisation,
as many that have lost their husbands were being denied by their family
members and friends. Their rights and privileges are also denied.
“By the time I got information from the doctor that there was a
treatment to suppress the virus, I was a little bit relieved, but I was
afraid for my little son, who just came into this world. I was not
bothered about myself,” she said.
Chika’s son, who is now a 20-year-old, is waxing strong with the help of the drugs.
Misconceptions On Mode Of Transmission
Okafor, who has lived with the virus for 19 years said, “most people
think that all women living with HIV are prostitutes. My husband was the
one that deflowered me; you can contract HIV/AIDS from anywhere.
“I want people to change the narrative that ladies living with
HIV/AIDS are wayward, I believe that is why people do not want to come
out to check their status or speak up that they have the virus.”
Okafor who narrated how she contracted the virus said, “It was late
but the symptoms in my husband’s body showed that he had HIV and he lied
to me that it was severe cough. His close friend was the one who
disclosed to me that my husband was HIV positive and that his family is
keeping it away from me. He said I should go and check myself if I also
have the virus.
“I did my test and found out that I was positive. My husband was
never a womaniser; I suspect he contracted HIV when he was stabbed him
in the chest. He had internal bleeding in his lungs and the hospital
asked us to get nine pints of blood, this was during the early 1980s. I
strongly believe that it was then that he contracted the disease.”
Ike on her part said: “I am somebody that does not flirt around, I
contracted HIV through my husband. It was when I got married to him that
I discovered that I had the virus. Initially, I could not believe that I
was down with that kind of health problem.”
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), HIV can be
transmitted through close contact with specific body fluids of persons
living with the virus. Apart from fluids such as blood, semen, and
breast milk; unprotected sex, body piercing equipment, or sharp objects
are also vehicles of transmission. Transmission can also be done through
mother-to-baby during pregnancy and through contaminated blood
transfusion.
‘Cost’ Of Drugs Limiting Access To Treatment
With many of the people living with the virus jobless, and without hope
of employment, affording the drugs for treatment and other medical
procedures becomes difficult.
Ike said: “These drugs that we are taking are to sustain our lives
and we have to eat well before taking them. What I am emphasising on is
that the government should help us because right now, we are paying for
drugs, and not everyone can afford it. We pay N2, 000 for consultation;
N1, 000 for drugs and almost N3, 000 for laboratory. Not everybody that
is HIV positive can afford it, so we are begging the government to help
people living with HIV, by making drugs and treatment procedures free.
It is laughable when we are told that the drugs are free of charge, and
when we get to the hospital we are told to pay for the procedures that I
have mentioned.
Implications
Findings by The Guardian reveal that because of rising stigmatisation,
many people living with HIV/AIDS are staying away from hospitals, while
those who suspect their status do not make themselves available for
examination. Because of all these, and the inability of many to access
treatment early, more people are getting infected and dying from the
virus.
This is also why some cases have remained undetected, a development
that poses more danger to the country, as those who are unaware of their
status could infect others, thereby increasing the spread of the virus.
Ike, who revealed an earlier encounter, which nearly ended her life
said: “When I went to a laboratory to do another test to confirm my
status, the lab scientists told me that people with the virus can
neither get married nor have children. With that impression, I refused
to go to the hospital or any other institution for treatment. I
concluded that I would commit suicide at home one day.”
Ike who lost her husband to the virus continued: “Because of this
stigmatisation people find it difficult to disclose their HIV status
because once they do, the news spreads so fast and then sooner than
later they are shut out of their families and the society. Where I
reside now, I have kept my HIV status a big secret.
“Some people do not even believe that there is something like a
discordant couple, where either of the partners is negative, while the
other is positive. The reality is that when two people are dating and
then one discloses his or her HIV status to the other, the relationship
breaks up immediately because they do not believe that those who are
positive can have children who are HIV negative,” she explained.
Ike added that her refusal to take treatment cost her two-month-old
her life after she developed cough and died. This made her summon
courage and head to head to the hospital for treatment.
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