CHRIS HERLINGER reports for ENInews…
By their daily lives and examples, Zambians are living the theme of the 19th International AIDS Conference, ‘Turning the Tide Together’.
Collins Mulenda, 33, says he is “living a positive life” both by being treated for the HIV virus himself and by acting as a peer counselor at Our Lady’s Hospice, a church-affiliated institution, in the Zambian capital of Lusaka that treats both inpatients and outpatients for various HIV-related conditions.
The news about HIV and AIDS from Zambia, a nation of 13 million people, has been mixed. Nearly one in seven people are believed to be infected with the HIV virus, though rates of infection have been declining, according to the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. |
“It is hard for someone to live ‘a positive life’,” Mr Mulenda said of his work counselling those who have discovered they have the HIV virus and are struggling with the new reality. “It’s our job for that person to understand and be able to handle the situation.”
A Lusaka automobile mechanic who was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 2004, Mr Mulenda, the father of three children (who are not HIV-positive), says he would be “stigmatizing myself” if he was not open about his status.
It takes time for those he counsels to adjust to their situation – including the regimen of check-ups and treatment with anti-retroviral drugs that treat HIV – and he tells them that “taking drugs just becomes part of your life.”
But he says the stigma attached to HIV and AIDS have been lessening. “It’s on the radio, it’s part of life,” he said in a recent interview with Ecumenical News International.
The news about HIV and AIDS from Zambia, a nation of 13 million people, has been mixed. Nearly one in seven people are believed to be infected with the HIV virus, though rates of infection have been declining, according to the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.
Just before the 22nd to 27th July AIDS conference in Washington, DC, UNAIDS, the United Nations AIDS program, announced good news: the rate of new HIV infections for children in Zambia dropped by 55 per cent between 2009 and 2011.
For those having to deal with the realities of treatment of HIV, Zambia’s church bodies have proven to be important leaders in providing health care.
Our Lady’s Hospice, for example, treats 3,500 outpatients and receives support from a variety of Catholic, secular and ecumenical funders, including Churches Health Association of Zambia, known as CHAZ, a joint Roman Catholic and Protestant network of clinics, community health centers, and hospitals that is the second largest health care provider in the country.
“I would say the response by the church has been very, very good,” Mr Mulenda said.
Reviews of some aspects of the church response to AIDS have been mixed, however, with some Zambian human rights, gay rights, and AIDS activists saying that much more needs to be done, both by church and government bodies, in dealing compassionately with the issue of men having sexual relations with men.
“There is still a lot of prejudice and judgement,” said Zambian gay rights activist Lundu Mazoka, speaking to a group of visiting journalists on 10th July in Lusaka. Mr Mazoka plans to attend the Washington conference.
