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(Reproduced from the Sunday Observer of November 25, 2001)
First detected in 1981 and HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) was identified as its cause three years later. Lives claimed - 22 million worldwide. HIV-positive - 36 million men, women and children infected. Sri Lankan AIDS deaths - 86. Estimated No. of HIV positive in Sri Lanka - 8,500 (200 are thought to be children who have contracted the disease from their parents.) No. of detected HIV positive people – 350 AIDS screening Centres - Katugastota, Karapitiya and Colombo STD Clinics. AIDS is no longer a distant threat. AIDS related deaths and reports of HIV positive people amidst our social circles are increasingly commonplace. But looking around one sees very little change in attitudes, facilities and awareness of AIDS and its attendant complications for family, relatives and the patient himself. The
Department of Health recently launched several intervention programs aimed
at raising awareness of the disease as well as preventing its
transmission. These programs include; Sex Education programs for high-risk
groups such as sex workers, taxi drivers, beach boys conducted in various
parts of the island both by government authorities and NGOs. In addition
to this, the Education Ministry is collaborating with the UNFPA on
reproductive health education programs for schoolchildren. The
Family Planning Association (FPA) is implementing a National Condom Social
Marketing Program with World Bank funding. The aim is to popularise condom
use in Sri Lanka and dispel social stigmas that surround it. Additionally,
the National STD/AIDS control program is expanding the number of clinics
available to serve patients and HIV-positive diagnosed people who
generally shy away from treatment at normal health centres. Sri Lanka
is also poised to introduce Anti Retro Viral drugs for treating HIV/AIDS
patients. In June this year addressing the UN gathering on HIV/AIDS in New
York, Health Minister H.M.W.D.J. Seneviratne urged the UN to assist in
establishing an Asian AIDS & Health Fund and an Asian partnership
against the disease, especially in the light that AIDS transmissions are
fast increasing in the South Asian region. Commendable
as such interventions are, there are nevertheless a number of gaps that
exist in the present care system. Gaps that need to be bridged to prevent
a serious outbreak of AIDS in the country. First there is the question of
how to deal with patients who have already developed the full-blown
disease or are HIV-infected. Do we leave them to die on the streets as
outcasts, or do their families have to bear the burden of looking after
them and in the process be ostracised by a society that still continues to
view AIDS as a shame? The fact
is, that despite all the education we have been given on the disease, most
of us treat HIV/AIDS in the same way as perhaps leprosy or syphilis in the
dark ages a century ago - with fear, hostility, prejudice and intolerance.
Much of this discrimination perhaps springs from fear of contamination
with a deadly virus and ignorance about how this virus is spread.
"Although many campaigns have focused on HIV transmission, the
misconception that HIV can be spread thorough casual contact persists both
North and South - with tragic results," says a media release by the
PANOS Institute. Awareness
campaigns on AIDS should not just talk of how the disease is spread, but
also inform that people who are HIV-positive or have developed the
full-blown disease have the same rights as they do; to education,
employment and even marriage. The next
step is to provide victims of AIDS with support services, in the form of
hospices and homes with specially trained staff, if their families are
unable to care for them at home. Even the
National AIDS campaign laments the lack of breakthrough in the health
sector, which has yet not made provisions for AIDS patients being admitted
to normal hospitals for any illness. The infrastructure to care and treat
AIDS patients in hospitals is not available, nor is staff trained to
handle patients who are HIV positive. Often patients are treated with
undue hostility and scorn. Then,
what about the children? It is children who comprise the most vulnerable
segment of society in the event of an AIDS epidemic. It is they who bear
the brunt of this disease that claims so many young parents in the prime
of their lives. More than
one million children according to recent statistics, in the developing
world alone have lost one or both parents to AIDS. So rampant is this
problem in African countries such as Uganda that the term
"child-headed homestead" is now common where thousands of
children have been left to cope on their own after the death of their
parents. A Panos briefing refers to one of the most serious effects on
children of AIDS victims as their "lost education". For, even
when they were alive parents who have become victims of AIDS were unable
to afford the cost of sending their children to school. In Sri
Lanka the official estimate of HIV carriers is 8,500. Out of which over
200 are thought to be children who have contracted the disease from their
mothers. The
question; is Sri Lanka geared to meet a situation where both parents of
young children could become victims of AIDS? Orphaned at a tender age,
many of them will perhaps be forced into the role of breadwinners for
their younger siblings. Where
would these children end up? In Institutions? With relatives? Or on the
streets joining the swelling ranks of beggars? Or worse still, as sex
workers thus exposing themselves to the same disease that claimed the
lives of their parents and bringing the vicious cycle to its tragic close.
Another
important question is the fate of HIV positive children. Sri Lanka
estimates that by the year 2010 there will be over ten thousand HIV
carriers in the country. Of this number, many could be children and
teenagers. What will be the fate of such children? Will they be placed in
separate institutions with trained caretakers? Will they be doomed forever
to live within the walls of such institutions deprived of their childhood
joys, their education, and their right to play with other children of
their age? Or will society accept them with sympathy and love and permit
them to live in regular homes and attend regular schools? This
writer observed at least one such experiment in which children infected or
affected by HIV/AIDS have been given the chance to live in regular homes
and attend normal schools in Sweden. In Stockholm organisations such as
the Noah's Ark Red Cross Foundation that functions as a meeting place for
HIV positive people and their relatives to give each other support they
needed. These organisations today have become the single beacon of hope
for hundreds of AIDS patients and their families. Most importantly they
have placed many children within the regular childcare system and enabled
them to attend daycare centres and schools, like any other child and even
organised summer camps for them in different locations in Sweden. Lisa
Sand, writing on HIV positive children at the request of the Noah's Ark -
Red Cross Foundation and the city of Stockholm, sums up the essence of
that experiment. She says, “When I started working with HIV in the
middle of the eighties, no one thought children with HIV would ever start
school or become teenagers.... These children need something to be able to
cope with in their teen and adult life. What we can give them is a
foundation to stand on in their lives and that is something we all must
help each other to create". With the
new triple drug therapy such children can now cope with the disease
without severe side effects, and enjoy a longer life span. So by
encouraging society to accept them, life would be much less traumatic for
such victims. In Sri Lanka, awareness among children on sexually transmitted diseases also lags behind. Many schools have half-hearted and sporadic attempts at educating a group of senior students on the subject, but an ongoing sustained effort at better, holistic education on sex related topics is poor. School education programs cannot talk of condoms or how one can use them. Many teachers and Principals fear that such education will encourage early sexual activity. But social workers often say that students expect and ask for such information, which may even save their lives one day. Support services for victims of this deadly disease are an urgent need.
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