HIV/Aids

 AIDS still matters.  Protect yourself.  Protect your partners.  Get tested.

 

I work for the Department of Health and one of my functions is to look at stats and analyze them.

Pretty exciting stuff.

The one sickness that is affecting people in South Africa (world wide, as well) is the HIV/Aids pandemic.

Now it is one thing to work with these figures, dealing with the folk at clinic (facility) base but it is a different kettle of fish when it is not just a number on a piece of paper but a family member.

You ask, if I have had that and my answer to you is a resounding "yes".

In my office environment 7 out of 10 of my colleagues have family memebers with HIV/Aids.

I then look, at our TV adverts, our books and magazines and the I shake my head in absolute dismay at what I see. 

Every advert has some sexual or genital nuance.

Every soap opera (on TV) is about this one who goes to bed with that one and so it continues....

Late night TV is all about soft porn

Then we cannot understand why the 9 year old molested the 3 year old with his finger ?????? (is this some figment of my imagination? .... no, I have worked at clinic level and what I have seen and the reports I have had to write has been emotionally traumatic to say the least)

Does sex education work, yes in a certain manner but why not educate that it is better to abstain from sex? rather than to have sex?

In South Africa, the men don't like condoms and do not let the woman use the female condom.

It takes away from their "manlihood".

The heart sore and trauma with this is the children ...... thank goodness for the strong spearheading of our government to push Neviropine and HAART treatment for our mothers/pregnant mothers and babies ...

Here is an interesting article:-

"Nearly 60 children are raped every day in South Africa and while experts agree to disagree as to the causes, or whether the pervasive belief in the so-called "Virgin Cure" prevents/cures HIV/Aids is possibly responsible for this deeply disturbing phenomenon, university researcher, Mike Earl-Taylor suggests it could well be a contributing factor, and a major one at that. Moreover, infant rape appears to be unique to South Africa, however, the Virgin Cure is not.  

In a recent Daily Dispatch, Graeme Pitcher, pediatric surgeon at the Department of Pediatric Surgery at Johannesburg Hospital and the University of the Witswatersrand, who has studied 13 infant rapes that have occurred nationally, said it was a growing phenomenon. According to Dr Pitcher it was important to distinguish between child and infant rape: "Child rape of children from five years and over occurs all over the world but the rape of infant girls occurs only here." Pitcher and his colleague, Dr Douglas Bowley, postulate some of the possible reasons are that South Africa is strife-torn with major socio-economic problems as well as the myth that sex with virgins can rid men of HIV/Aids and other sexually-transmitted diseases. 

"The motives as to why people rape infants also do not conform to the traditional motives as to why people [commit] rape. Infant rape does not have the power and sexual motive." Based on the balance of probabilities, rather than beyond reasonable doubt, my own views concur fully, with those of Doctors Pitcher and Bowley."

 21,000 child rapes, and some 37,000 adult rapes, were reported in South Africa last year. According to the South African Police Service, only one in 35 are actually reported. The actual incidence of rape could well be in excess of a million per year. It can only be speculated and extrapolated then that the actual incidence of child/infant rape has reached alarming and phenomenal proportions that should signal urgent intervention from the highest levels of government, and society-at-large."

What is HIV?

 To answer the question what is HIV AIDS, we have to start early in the epidemic. In 1985, scientists discovered the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and with it the question what is aids was answered. HIV is a virus that is transmitted from person to person through the exchange of body fluids such as blood, semen, breast milk and vaginal secretions. Sexual contact is the most common way to spread HIV AIDS, but it can also be transmitted by sharing needles when injecting drugs, or during childbirth and breastfeeding. As HIV AIDS reproduces, it damages the body's immune system and the body becomes susceptible to illness and infection. There is no known cure for HIV infection.