HEALTH: Red Cross, UN Launch Fight against HIV/AIDS Stigma

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, May 6 2002 (IPS) - Much of the expansion of HIV/AIDS can be attributed to the discrimination suffered by people who are infected with the virus, says the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies as it begins a global campaign against the stigma associated with the disease.

The fight against the prejudices faced by people with HIV/AIDS and the discovery of an effective vaccine are the two areas that need greatest attention because they offer the promise of bringing the epidemic under control, according to the Red Cross.

The campaign, planned in collaboration with the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, is based on the conviction that stigma and discrimination is an offence to human dignity, and also fuel the epidemic, which claimed three million lives in 2001.

An estimated 500,000 of the 800,000 children born last year with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) are believed to have been infected because their mothers feared discrimination so did not demand appropriate medical services, said Alvaro Bermejo, Red Cross health director.

The means to prevent mother-infant infections are available and inexpensive, but many pregnant women choose not to have an HIV test or they never collect the results.

This behaviour arises from “fear of being stigmatised and discriminated against by their families, by their friends, by their employers or the authorities” if the woman is found to be HIV positive, said Bermejo.

Furthermore, an estimated half million new HIV cases each year involve intravenous drug users. “Again, stigma and discrimination are behind those infections,” stated the Red Cross official.

In many countries, people who are addicted to intravenous drugs are denied access to sterilised syringes. As a result, said Bermejo, “they share needles, and they also share the infection among themselves and with their sexual partners.”

According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, policies and programmes to help intravenous drug users are badly needed to control the fastest-growing HIV/AIDS epidemic in the world, that of Eastern Europe.

“This is equally true in South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia and China,” stressed Bermejo as he announced the launch of the campaign against HIV/AIDS stigma and discrimination during a press conference Monday in Geneva.

Efforts are even needed in the United States, “where the epidemic has existed for a long time and where we tend to think that there is more open attitude towards people living with HIV/AIDS.”

Bermejo pointed out that a large portion of the African- Americans who test positive for HIV in Connecticut, one of the wealthiest states in the United States, do not receive antiretroviral therapy, in spite of being free of cost, because they fear what others would think.

One way to look at the situation, he said, is that some “people prefer to have their children infected or prefer to die themselves rather than run the risk of their families or communities knowing they are infected.”

The Red Cross official said that in his professional experience with people living with HIV/AIDS he does not hear many complaints about the persistent diarrhoea or coughs, or other every-day side effects associated with the disease.

“What you hear most often is patients saying that the most difficult thing about living with HIV is the stigma that surrounds it.”

Bermejo cited the testimony of one man who said the worst part of the disease is “waking up and looking in the mirror to see if there is something in my face, something new today that might give away my status, that will tell other people that I’m infected.”

The Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has issued an appeal to the international community to take action aimed at reducing the stigma and discrimination suffered by people living with HIV/AIDS.

“This is a matter of human dignity, of the human rights of these people,” said Bermejo, and is of utmost importance, he added, “because the epidemic will continue to defeat us unless we take action.”

UNAIDS agrees that stigma and discrimination are major obstacles to effective prevention and care.

The UN agency says the campaign will “encourage people to break the silence and the barriers” that stand in the way of achieving those objectives.

The Red Cross will launch its campaign May 8 in many countries, including Mozambique, Belize and Honduras. In symbolic ceremonies, individuals living with HIV/AIDS will remove blindfolds worn by political leaders in those countries.

The two-year global campaign against stigma and discrimination will include the participation worldwide of some 400,000 Red Cross and Red Crescent volunteers.