The dilemma of grownups born with HIV

By Gilbert Kidimu

Shakira is a stunning 25-year-old woman in splendid physical shape. She eats right, hits the gym and maintains her flawless skin and glossy hair with a line of premium cosmetics.

Nature also rolled in her favour, making her a man magnet.

However, beautiful but unlucky may be a description befitting this Ugandan beauty. Although she tops the list of many men’s “to do” list, she remains single. Shakira is HIV positive.

Her vibrant appearance is only a result of medication and a healthy lifestyle. She has been through countless relationships before where she has been sexually active and used protection. But the men leave as soon as she discloses her status. They have come and they have all gone.

But what she finds more frustrating is she had nothing to do with her predicament. Shakira was born with HIV.
Her last relationship, which lasted longer than them all, ended only a few months back. It all started when she got into a relationship with a caring, married man.

He lovingly paid her rent, generously funded her shopping, and frequently handed her pocket money. He was like no other before him.

Seeing that she was abandoned every time she revealed her status; this time, just this time, she tucked the truth under veils of secrecy. It was fine as long as they used protection.

But after over a year, he wanted her to become his second wife and start a family.

Growing up as an Orphan, Shakira never made it passed O-level and barely got by as an adult. She knew what living in abject poverty was like. Finally she had a break in life and letting it all go was inconceivable. Again, her better judgement was blurred by her desire to protect a secure relationship.

Seeing the ring on his finger, he couldn’t go for an HIV test with a woman who wasn’t his wife and noticeably more than a decade younger.

They thus went separately, which gave Shakira the opportunity to swap her results for negative ones successfully. The pieces fell in place.

During their stay together, Shakira would cautiously take her medication and when she gave birth, she somehow manoeuvred and avoided breastfeeding their baby boy.

His wife, who he was still seeing, had no clue of another thriving relationship.

One and half years later, her man started falling ill again and again. Once, a doctor suggested he takes an HIV test. The results turned out positive. What followed was a bitter split.

The reality we close our eyes to

Although you wouldn’t notice by looking; among us live a group of young men and women urgently in need of help. Children from the 80’s and 90s, born with HIV have grown into young adults.

Just like Shakira; they are healthy in a physical sense, but because they live with HIV in secret for fear of the associated stigma and rejection, at a time when nature urges them to find love; they find themselves either lonely or getting into relationships without being honest. They thus pose a danger to themselves and to others.

Margaret Mugisha, director, African Institute for Health and HIV/AIDS  (AFIHA) says that while in the 80s and early 90s, children born with HIV were not expected to go passed the fifth year; all that changed with the coming of anti-retroviral therapy (ART). It is now possible to live a full life even though one is infected with the HIV virus. All of which is very good news.

However, those children have now reached adolescence, and adulthood. “While their physical lives are on track, their social lives are blighted by the same old negative social attitudes towards those living with HIV,” details Mugisha adding that faced with rejection, these young people find themselves unable to disclose their status to prospective partners and therefore either opt for loneliness, or get into sexual relationships without revealing their HIV status.

The danger to them is due to failure to adhere to the medication regime for fear of discovery by their partners.

According to Phillipa Musoke Paediatrician Makerere University Johns Hopkins University Research Collaboration, Ninety percent of young people today living with HIV got it through mother-to-child transmission, and for fear of stigma many keep their status a secret.

She says that currently Uganda has approximately 150,000 children living with HIV/AIDS.

A ray of hope

The African Institute for Health and HIV/AIDS (AFIHA), an NGO is bent on counteracting this dilemma. According to its founder and director Margaret Mugisha, AFIHA’s core aims are to address the predicament young people living with HIV/AIDS are facing, leading to their liberation from this situation into lives fulfilled with self-esteem, loving relationships, social security and safe families of their own.

Mugisha, a nurse by profession and practicing counsellor with Healing Balm has worked as counsellor at Joint Clinical Research Centre for 8 years, an experience that inspired AFIHA.

She says the institution intends to provide a platform where these young people can come together in a safe environment to interact and talk about their issues in a frank and open manner, which is important in regaining their self-esteem, and social confidence.

“This will be by way of seminars and similar events both at the institute’s premises and at other institutions such as schools, colleges and universities,” says Mugisha adding that they will talk to a trained counsellor to discuss individual problems and experiences.

“Many of these young people are living with anger and confusion, unable to forgive their parents whom they see as the source of their suffering,” explains Mugisha. “They need help to release this anger and find inner peace that comes with forgiveness, which is itself dependant on self-acceptance,” she adds.

AFIHA has a program to solicit funds and resources to support those young people further their education. “Many of them are orphans in many cases total orphans.”

However Mugisha lucks resources to achieve this and like people and organisations to partner with her to see that these young people are informed and transformed individuals, that are economically empowered, and who under the guidance of AFIHA programs are able to find life partners and bring forth HIV-free children of their own, always aware of their responsibilities to themselves and their community at large.

UNICEF HIV estimates among young people in Uganda 2013:

Women aged 15+ living with HIV are 610,000

Children aged 0 to 14 living with HIV 150,000

Orphans due to AIDS aged 0 to 17 is 1,200,000

HIV prevalence among young people 15-24 is 3.6%

HIV prevalence among male 15-24 years is 2.3%

HIV prevalence among female 15- 24 years 4.8%

Males who have comprehensive knowledge of HIV 15-24 years 38%

Females who have comprehensive knowledge of HIV 15- 24 years32%

Males who used condom at last higher-risk sex, 15- 24 years 55%

Females who used a condom at last higher-risk sex, 15- 24 years 38%
 
Related Stories

Born with HIV, they have healthy babies

Youth urged to utilise HIV/AIDS prevention skills

HIV infections on the rise among teens