Patricia Watson, Staff Reporter
DURBAN, South Africa:
THERE IS an old saying in rural St. Elizabeth that "duppy walk over mi grave", when a feeling of premonition comes over a person.
For some reason, the same feeling came over me after almost all the sessions I attended at the XIII International AIDS conference in South Africa last week.
When AIDS came to public attention more than 20 years ago, no one could have imagined the dreadful impact it is now having on peoples of the world and, more specifically, the people of Africa.
The figures are ominous: 18.8 million deaths, including 3.8 children.
It gets even worse. Today, approximately 34.3 million people around the world are living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. And barring some act of God, all these people could be dead in just 10 years.
Of the 34.3 million people living with HIV (PLWHA), an estimated 71 per cent or 24.5 million live in sub-Saharan Africa. When one considers that this area only contains 11 per cent of the global population, the extent of the situation is fully realised.
To get a full understanding of the magnitude of the situation, let us examine the following: More than eight per cent of the adult population in sub-Saharan Africa is HIV positive, and, since the epidemic, 14.8 million African people have died from AIDS. Last year, 2.2 million AIDS deaths occurred in Africa.
Looking at these figures, one may simply pass them over stating they are of no concern to Jamaica. But that is where you would be dead wrong.
For years, the general population in Jamaica has paid scant regard to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, passing it off as a homosexual disease. And, while the attitude towards the disease has improved somewhat, there is still that feeling among many that it can't happen to them.
However HIV/AIDS is a reality and the sooner the country recognises it as an emergency situation, the better.
According to the joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the Caribbean ranks second to Africa in the number of PLWHAs.
The UNAIDS said that "HIV is ravaging the populations of several Caribbean countries -- some have worse epidemics than any other country in the world outside of sub-Saharan Africa."
This is not just statistics. Indeed since the epidemic started, AIDS has robbed numerous Jamaicans of their loved ones.
Many of us know someone who has died from the disease and even more have been guilty of driving these people from their communities and families to die alone.
Some of us have even fired PLWHA from their jobs or refused to employ them because their medical examination contained the figurative scarlet letter.
Many of us who are healthy have given little or no thought to the plight of those PLWHAs in Jamaica.
How are they coping? Are they getting enough counselling? Are they getting adequate medication? What can I do to prevent more people from getting the HIV infection? These are questions we need to ask ourselves.
Approximately 4,196 Jamaican mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers have contracted AIDS since 1982, of which more than 3,000 have died.
It is, therefore, time for all pussyfooting to stop and for Jamaicans to begin seriously to work to put a stop to the carnage.
The time for casting blame is now over. We cannot get tied down in discussions on how people contracted the deadly disease. It is time for solutions to the problem and the time is now.
Silence
One of the main reasons the AIDS epidemic has spread so much in Africa is the silence that surrounded the disease. Nobody spoke about it, not the Governments, not the church ministers or family members.
In her book, Living and dying with AIDS, Tessa Marcus noted the stigma and secrecy that surrounded AIDS in Africa. She said members of the focus groups in her research offered a string of euphemisms to refer to AIDS.
"It's called ubhubhane (the destroyer)".
"Yes there is amagobhongo umeqo (like being bewitched through evil spirits) and others have referred to it as pneumonia".
Further, she said one youth stated that "I think that AIDS is there because there are lots of deaths and there are funerals every Saturday".
Jamaica cannot wait for this to happen and must take steps now to prevent the unnecessary dying of our people due to AIDS.
Everyone must become involved in spreading the message that 'yes, sex is good, but this is what may happen if you practice unsafe sex'.
Sex education must become a staple in all schools from primary level to the tertiary level, and in churches.
"We need not as a nation or individuals, but as citizens of earth to come together, using whatever strategies necessary and making formal interventions into areas such as the church, in order to stem the growth of this monster," Marvin Gunter, chairman of the Caribbean AIDS Network (CARA), said last week.
Monster
And what a terrible monster AIDS has become. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) estimates that mortality as a result of AIDS will result in negative population growth for some countries.
Mr. Gunter said "Ways must be found to engage church leaders so they can facilitate the HIV awareness of their co-leaders and members with the benefit of information bequeathing to the community in which they serve."
He said the use of condoms also needs to be included in the teaching of strategies employed by the church.
"With HIV, if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. It is, therefore, imperative that efforts be made to formally address a sustained pastoral intervention into our various organisation and by extension the community they serve."
In other words, church leaders, as respected members of the society, must get down from among the clouds and speak frankly with their congregations about sex and sexually transmitted diseases. We are in a crisis situation and drastic measures are required.
But apart from the church leaders, Ministers of Government need to start speaking publicly about the disease with their constituents.
Every Minister who gets on the floor to address the country, must make mention of the disease and the impact it has been having on the society.
The Jamaican society needs to recognise the growing homosexual community in our midst as well and tailor messages that will encourage safe sex among this group.
One is not recommending that homosexuality be decriminalised, but that we recognise it is here and should be addressed accordingly.
The saying that, if every day you sweep the dirt under the carpet, one day it will trip you, should be heeded. We must stop pretending that homosexuality is not an issue and deal with it before it is too late.
To those Jamaican men with sexually-transmitted infections, having sex with a virgin will not cure them. The only cure is through medication and in the case of HIV, there is no cure.
Sex education
Therefore, men do not spread the infection by having sex with young innocent girls. You are only blighting their future when you do that.
Those men, too, who get angry when their women, whether wives or girlfriends insist on using a condom during sexual intercourse, need to understand that most are not doing this because they are unfaithful.
Women and men who have multiple partners must also use the condom so as to prevent the spread of the deadly disease.
Everyone knows that the condom takes away somewhat from the pleasures of lovemaking, and, in that case, counsellors need to inform their charges of ways to enhance this.
As a society, we need to stop pretending that sex is dirty and, as parents, we need to be frank with our children.
Children are smart and they know that there must be a reason mommy and daddy sleep in another room and lock the door.
Sex education must become a part of parenting as only then will we be able to conquer the disease now loose in the country.
