Summer School - HIV/AIDs course

Before I explain about what happened at Ministry Week, let me back track a bit and tell you about the HIV/AIDS course we did during summer school at the beginning of the year. Before the official start of term in January, the college held Summer School where we could choose from a variety of courses. Chester and I decided to sign up for the week-long HIV/AIDS class and we are so glad that we did it! Prior to the course, I thought I was somewhat educated about HIV/AIDS, but now I realise how misinformed and totally ignorant I was.

Did you know:

• HIV is a virus that attacks your immune system, but AIDS is the disease that is caused by this virus. Therefore, AIDS can’t be transmitted but HIV can.
  
• If you are HIV+, you don’t necessarily have AIDS. You only develop AIDS later on if your white blood cell count (CD4) is below 200. ‘Healthy’ people would have a CD4 count of around 1000+.


• Even if you develop AIDS, you can take drugs (ARVs - Anti-Retro Virals) which can bring your white blood cell count at a safe level above 200. Thus you can ‘recover’ from AIDS, but still be HIV+. The problem with ARV’s is that they are very expensive and must be taken at the same time each day.


• If you are HIV+, you can still live a totally normal life for many, many years if you look after your health. But unfortunately there is no cure for HIV and sooner or later, the HIV virus will win the battle against your immune system.


• Technically, you don’t die from HIV/AIDS but you die from other diseases that you catch because your body can no longer fight it off as your immune system is too depleted. That’s why the death statistics for HIV/AIDS are probably much higher than that which is recorded because on death certificates, doctors have attributed HIV/AIDS related deaths to other diseases, such as TB.


• HIV can be transmitted several ways.
  1. Through sexual intercourse with an infected person,
  2. Through HIV infected blood gaining entry into the body (eg blood transfusion, sharing needles, touching infected blood if you have cuts on your hands),
  3. Through mother to child transmission due to pregnancy, childbirth or breast feeding. However, there is only a 20-40% chance that the infant will become infected.


• Even if both partners are HIV+, it is wise to use practice safe sex as you can cross-infect each other with different sub strains of the virus and worsen each other’s health.


• Globally, there are around 40.3 million people who are HIV+. 25.8 million of them are in Southern Africa – 4.7 million of which are South Africans. (UNAIDS, 2005).


• Many people think that HIV/AIDS is a homosexual disease. But in South Africa, only 7% of cases are from homosexual contact. 79% are from heterosexual contact, 13% from infection of mother to baby and less than 1% via other blood transmission. (UNAIDS, 1999)

Stigmatism

Apart from the physical death that ensues when you are HIV+, the social death can be even worse. There is a terrible stigma and stereotype of people who are HIV+ due to the lack of education.

Think about it, if someone told you they were HIV+, how would you now act towards them? Would you not touch them or stand near them? Would you not visit their home anymore? What would you immediately assume about them? That they are sexually promiscuous? They didn’t use protection?

One way of tackling the problem of stigmatism is to get educated!

• HIV is not easily spread through normal casual contact with infected people.


• The virus cannot survive for long periods outside the human body and is not easily able to enter a healthy mouth or eye. The virus is not present in high enough quantities in the saliva to cause infection.


• HIV is not normally transmitted via airborne routes (such as coughing, sneezing, talking, kissing), simple skin contact (such as hand shaking, hugging), via food or water on plates, cups toilets, showers or linen.

A social disease?

Many have said that HIV/AIDS is a social disease. HIV/AIDS is highest in areas where there is poverty, high unemployment and low education. Being bored, having lots of free time but no money to go out are contributing factors for people (especially youth) turning to sex, drugs and prostitution to stave off boredom and poverty. Poverty also means that HIV+ people will have less access to nutrition, medical care and medication, sanitation, exercise facilities and education about the disease.

Culture also plays a big factor to the spread of HIV. Overall in South Africa, HIV/AIDS is more prominent in black people rather than white or coloured people. Many reasons have been proposed – please note, these are huge generalisations about different races, but they help to provide some insight.

Although white people may have more sexual partners in their lifetime, they are generally monogamous in their relationships. Whereas black people may have 2 or more partners during the same period. So although a black person may have only had 2 partners in their lifetime, they are at higher risk because those 2 people may also be sleeping with 2 other people and so on - all within the same period, causing a more rapid spread of the virus.

There are also lots of myths in black culture, which do not help with combating the spread of the disease. Some of these myths include the belief that you can cure yourself of HIV/AIDS by having unprotected sex with a virgin (this has encouraged rape) or a fat woman (don’t know how that one came about!).

Many black people prefer to see a Sangoma (witch doctor) before they see a doctor of western medicine. Some Sangomas claim to be able to cure people of HIV/AIDS, which is so dangerous because these infected people will keep being ‘unsafe’, thinking that they have been cured. A high ranking SA Government official recently announced that he cured himself of HIV/AIDS by taking a shower to clean himself of the virus. You can imagine how detrimental comments like these can be!

The other tragic thing about HIV/AIDS is the amount of children left without parents. Globally, there are around 13.2 million orphans as a result of HIV/AIDS. 90% of these orphans are in Southern Africa. HIV/AIDS also effects the economy drastically as many of the dying are in the workforce.

Gugulethu

The outside of Barcelona Baptist Church at Gugulethu; Chester playing with a HIV+ child.

As part of the summer school course, we went on a couple of excursions. One outing was to a nearby township called Gugulethu (pronounced goo-goo-le-too). Consisting of black people, the township was full of shacks and appalling living conditions. It was a bit of a fright to me to be exposed to this in my 2nd week of being in South Africa, but unfortunately it is the living reality of many South Africans. I thought that these places would be more reserved for other parts of Africa, but the more I see of South Africa, the more I see the huge disparity between rich and poor. It is not uncommon to see beautiful houses and then a neighbourhood of shacks right next door.

We went to visit a Pastor at the local Christian church, Barcelona Baptist. He was telling us about how the township was so rough that even the police are scared to go in there. Even the residents have started to take the law into their own hands by handing out judgements on people they deem to be breaking the law. Near the church is a shed where people get beaten if they misbehave. One night a woman was being chased by a mob who wanted to take her to the shed and beat her up. She sought refuge in the church and the pastor protected her. She has since become a Christian and church worker.

The Pastor found that there were some kids who were being left to die on the streets because they were HIV+ and/or had lost their parents who were also HIV+. He has been taking these kids in and now looks after 4 HIV+ kids. These kids came out to see us and you would never ever guess that they were HIV+. We were playing with them and they were so joyful and you could tell how much they were loved by the Pastor. It was amazing seeing the great work that the church was doing in the community, showing the residents that although the kids are HIV+, they can lead normal lives and should be loved just as any other person should be loved. What a great witness of Jesus’ love!

The living conditions at Gugulethu are apalling. All you can see for miles and miles are shacks. As the shacks are made with pieces of corrugated iron, in summer, it is extremely hot and in winter it is extremely cold. The houses are lined with platic bags as they leak quite easily. Most of them have electricity and running water however, and despite the poverty, we noticed alot of satellite dishes too! Cable TV is expensive here - about R450 per month ($AUS80). It is funny what people prefer to spend their money on - entertainment rather than more food or a better living environment.

Living Hope

The second excursion we went to was to a Christian run HIV/AIDS hospice called ‘Living Hope’. The manager bluntly explained that a hospice is normally where people are sent to die when they have AIDS (CD4 count under 200). However, Living Hope has a better track record of healing people than the local hospitals. Most of their patients who are admitted with AIDS end up getting well again and being able to return back home and to work. Unfortunately, some of the patients’ families have been known to sell all the possessions of the sick person, so they have nothing left when they return home healthy.

When someone has AIDS, there is an opportunity to get some money from the government. The manager also told us that some families ‘live off’ their sick family member, making sure that they are sick enough to get the financial benefits from the government but not sick enough to die.

What a terrible world we live in that people would take advantage of their family and the system like that – money is put ahead of love for each other and also put ahead of health!

Unconditional love

Before attending the course, I think I would have been really apprehensive about playing with the HIV+ kids at Gugulethu. Even though I knew that I couldn’t ‘catch’ HIV, I think in the back of my mind, I would have had some sort of prejudice against them. However, after learning more about the virus, my eyes were really opened to my own ignorance and discrimination. If I had met a person with cancer, there would be no way that I would shirk away from them. In the same way, I should not disassociate myself with HIV+ people or judge them.

Through this course, I have been reminded of the importance of loving others unconditionally, just like how Jesus loves us unconditionally and still came to die for us even though we are undeserving. I hope that you will be encouraged by this as well and if required, rethink any negative stances you may have.