COVID-19: Stigma could cause more vulnerability, how to cope

Nov 02, 2020

HEALTH AND BEAUTY

"Beautiful lady I know you are on Twitter, so I will call you Teller one. You didn't have your mask on neither was the customer you served. My turn my mask is on, you look at me pretend you needed something, used your finger go to Teller two."
"I am not COVID-19, it lived in me.

The money you count may have it," reads a tweet posted by the Chief Political Commissar of the Uganda Police, Asan Kasingye, posted on 26th last month to express his displeasure with stigma.

On August 23, 2020 Kasingye publically disclosed on his Twitter handle that he had tested positive for COVID-19. Having recovered and gone back into the community, he has had to grapple with stigma.

"I understand the stigma. At office two people tested positive with COVID-19 but the rest of us who shared the same block with them are being stopped from entering other people's offices.

Apparently we have COVID-19," tweets one Tausha in response to Kasingye."Acceptance in communities is the biggest challenge we are facing, maybe people need to be sensitised  that COVID-19 patients can recover fully and be normal like them," tweets one Evelyn Namataka in response to Kasingye's concerns.

Christopher Senyimba called the experience unfortunate. "This highlights another issue in the COVID-19 fight - stigma. Society ought to understand this. We need to sensitize," he tweeted in response.

Stigma is insensitive and exposes the recipients to humiliation and pain. But the biggest danger of stigma is that it actually contributes to the spread of disease. How, you may ask? Find out in the Health & Beauty section of the New Vision.

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