MY TAKE ON HIV/AIDS WITH REGARDS TO WORLD AIDS DAY

HIV and AIDS, discovered about some 50 years ago continue to take the lives of some people despite several efforts to manage the disease. Some children have become vulnerable, and in need of care and protection because of the death of either or both parents through AIDS. Few years ago, I shied away from skinny people with the fear of being infected with the virus by such persons. This preconceived notion came about as a result of how the disease was portrayed some years back. Aside being termed ‘Deadly ’, some of us learnt from school textbooks how ‘bonny’ and ‘dead-bound’ persons with AIDS were. 

I strongly held on to my principle of alienation until the death of a close relative when I got to know she had lived with AIDS for the past five years. I never imagined I could be that close with the disease without even knowing. My perception about HIV and AIDS changed from there. However, I got to know through this experience, how fast discrimination and stigmatization could make a person with HIV/AIDS die. I realized that the relative might have stayed longer had it not been the cold relationship meted out to her by family and friends.

As the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon once said, ‘Stigma remains the most important barrier to public action. It is a main reason why too many people are afraid to see a doctor to determine whether they have the disease, or to seek treatment if so. It helps make AIDS the silent killer, because people fear the social disgrace of speaking about it, or taking easily available precautions.”

As Ghana prepares to join the global community in celebrating World AIDS Day, let us all intensify our commitment in the response to HIV/AIDS prevention. Stakeholders, including governments, the media, pressure groups, religious organizations and individuals have a lead role to play in HIV/AIDS  treatment, care and support at policy, strategy programs, implementation as well as monitoring and evaluation levels. 

We need to own the process of solving AIDS-related problems and sustain the level of progress being made in halting and reversing the spread of AIDS in our part of the world.

Millennium Development Goal 6 of the United Nations hopes to have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV and AIDS. Making this target see the light of day means that we scale up all possible responses in order to address the critical gaps in prevention, treatment, care and support across sub-Saharan Africa where the disease is reported to have affected many lives.

The theme for this year’s celebration, “Getting to Zero” simply tells us that response to HIV and AIDS prevention ‘is not over until it is over’. There is the need to intensify sensitization programmes, revive peer educators clubs in schools and communities, and live peaceably with all persons living with HIV and AIDS even beyond 1^st December. 

For us as young people, I believe the message is clear, ‘prevention is better than cure’. You are either infected or affected. Let us all abstain, otherwise condoms should be used.