WHERE ARE WE TODAY?

In July 1981, the New York Times reported an outbreak of a rare form of cancer but medically know as Kaposi Sarcoma. About the same time, Emergency Rooms in New York City began to see a rash of seemingly healthy young men presenting with fevers, flu like symptoms, and a pneumonia called Pneumocystis. About a year later, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) linked the illness to blood and coined the term AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). In that first year over 1600 cases were diagnosed with close to 700 deaths.

As the number of deaths soared, medical experts scrambled to find a cause and more importantly a cure. In 1984, Institute Pasteur of France discovered what they called the HIV virus, but it wasn’t until a year later a US scientist, Dr. Robert Gallo confirmed that HIV was the cause of AIDS.

Following this discovery, the first test for HIV was approved in 1985. Over the next several years medications to combat the virus were developed as well as medicines to prevent infections that flourish when the immune system is damaged by HIV and AIDS.

So where are we today? Thanks to an ever-changing array of new anti-retroviral drugs and improved funding for early medical care, AIDS related deaths in some parts of the World are declining. People are healthier and living longer. But, in other parts of the world, the AIDS epidemic rages on. Some estimate that 40 percent of persons in the sub-Sahara region of Africa are HIV infected. Many of these people don’t realize they are infected, resulting in the infection of others, adding to the spread of the disease. Another grim reminder of the epidemic is the number of African children orphaned by AIDS. Streets are clogged with children who have lost their parents to AIDS, have no food, and no place to go. And with no money available for expensive HIV drugs, the epidemic is expected to get much worse.

KITAKULE MICHEAL Patron teacher Musita C/U Primary School

I have taken time studying about HIV/AIDS but I have come to believe that it is so much a funny disease and its spread is doubled by our selves. In the entire story, you will discover that there is some point of selfishness and mercilessness.

Cross generation sex. This is where a person like a girl plays sex with a man who is 15 years above her age. This is two-way traffic scenario; that it applies to either girls and boys or men and women.

Social – cultural problems for example in Africa where a man dies and then the wife (the widow) is given another man the brother to the deceased husband to inherit her. So incase the deceased was positive to HIV/AIDS, then the brother will directly fish it also or vise versa and hence spreading it out.

Stigma – where some people fear to tell their partners what their status is as in line with HIV/AIDS. In one case in our village, a man tested positive and he started taking ARVs alone and he didn’t advise the wife also to get tested and start taking ARVs.

Gender Issues – where some partners say after all my partner has other lovers, let me also have others (they call them side dishes), is one of the chief causes that have lead to the increased spread of HIV/AIDS

It has been heard through rumor for a long period of time that some men and women don’t want or neglect to use condoms for their personal reasons. They always claim that sex with a condom is eating a sweet in its cover. This has rendered many to the hungry roaring lion – HIV.

Having shared with you some of the causes, I wish to share with you also the best ways I think and feel HIV/AIDS can be best prevented;

For parents/ guardians and teachers, the best way we can help the children is by talking about HIV/AIDS with them. Talk to children and carry out HIV/AIDS activities at school assemblies, form HIV/AIDS awareness clubs at schools, and have days for guidance and counseling where you encourage them to abstain. This will help manly the children to grow up when they know the dangers of the disease when they contracted it. It will scare them away and they will take great care of their lives.

For my dear ones who can’t abstain, using condoms becomes a better choice for you and also being faithful to your love partner. Side dishes should be deleted if one has to survive the AIDS scourge.

Could anyone have foreseen that the mysterious illness affecting a few gay men in 1981 would become the epidemic of the 20thcentury? Much progress has been made, but still so much needs to be learned. Until then the epidemic continues. So we need to take great care.

I dedicate this article to my pupils of Musita C/U Primary School and to all the children of Hope Children Club (H.C.C)

By: KITAKULE MICHEAL

Patron teacher Musita C/U Primary School