The feud between management of University of Ghana and Rev. Lawrence Tetteh, I believe has come to a reasonable end, following unequivocal apology from the Preacher over his HIV comment, tagging the student body of the premier university.
Some people may wonder why the university management would find his comment scandalous and demand an apology and retraction? They say that what the pastor said is true and he didn’t have to apologise for telling the truth.
Well, here is the thing, HIV today, in 2024 in terms of treatment, prognosis and prevention is not a problem at all; (I will explain later). The biggest problem of HIV today was created in the 80s when the disease first surfaced. That singular biggest problem is borne out of the confusion, exaggeration, misinformation that characterised HIV as a novel infection at the time.
It is also partly due to how the infection started and how it is transmitted- discovered more in gay communities and through sexual contact. So, people felt it is a disease for wayward and morally bankrupt individuals. All of these put together created problem of serious stigmatization, discrimination and alienation of people infected with the virus.
The Biggest problem of HIV/AIDS
Clearly, the biggest problem of HIV/AIDS is the stigmatization that characterised the disease from the beginning. In my local Ewe dialect, the name for HIV is “dika naku” which literally means, “grow lean and die”. This is how people were educated back then to control spread of the infection because there was no proper treatment. So, it was like some sort of fear mongering tactics to deter people from engaging in unsafe sexual practices.
Those days, HIV was like a death sentence and so in the quest to control the disease through lifestyle modification and not medical treatment and other tools like the use of condom, led to a great wall of stigmatization that has endured to date.
HIV should never have been a problem today because there are proven medical breakthroughs in treating, managing and prevention of the disease. To the extent that, medical scientists are working around the clock and are close to finding a complete cure like any other cure for infection like malaria or TB.
HIV/AIDS still remains serious national health concerns around the world, especially in Africa because of the wrong mindset and stigma majority have towards it. Why would someone knowingly tell others, even friends and family his/her HIV status, when he is fully aware he would be ostracised, despised and openly stigmatized? This has been the dangerous disease of the infection HIV itself for a long time and conscientious effort must be made by all, especially mandated authorities to treat and cure this strong resistant disease of HIV stigmatization. Public and primary healthcare
When this is done well and results achieved, we would have less of problems like the one between the utterances of Rev. Lawrence Tetteh and the management of University of Ghana.
Having said much above, let me add more points to why I said HIV should never be a problem today.
Did you know that....
when someone gets exposed to HIV virus, let’s say, through needle prick or sexual intercourse, the victim has about 72hours window period to clear the virus from his or her system before it takes root? This opportunity can only be achieved in a proper health facility.
Did you know that, a person with HIV can have unprotected sex with HIV-free partner and never get him or her infected? This can only be achieved if the infected partner is placed on treatment, follows it and viral load is little or even undetectable with regular testing.
Did you know that someone can unknowingly live with HIV virus for years-10 or even 20 without showing the slightest signs of the disease but can still go on infecting others? He or she may look tough, big, handsome, pretty or healthy and still harbour the virus which is able to infect others. This is why you cannot use appearance to tell who has the disease or not.
Did you know that the virus HIV does not kill its host directly? Other diseases like TB, malaria, cholera, etc. that directly kill, HIV virus does not. What the virus does is that, it weakens the immune system-destroy disease fighting cells and then makes the victim vulnerable for other opportunistic diseases to likely do the killing. That vulnerable state HIV virus causes is what we call AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome)
Did you know that due to sex organ anatomical differences women are more vulnerable to getting infected through sexual contact than men? Ladies may receive into the body more volume of sexual fluid after ejaculation than sexual fluid from ladies getting into the man through the penis. This is why ladies should be the one insisting on the use of condom always whenever they want to have sexual intercourse with a man they do not know; especially the HIV status.
In Conclusion
In the final analysis, if you remove this ugly, thick clothing of stigmatization, marginalisation off HIV, in the light of marvellous medical breakthrough in treatment, management, prevention and possible universal cure of it (HIV) I can openly say today, comparably, HIV infection is far better than diseases like chronic hypertension, chronic kidney disease, chronic liver diseases, stroke etc.
Adding to why I think an infected HIV person under treatment is better off than those health problems mentioned, data point to the fact that, those are the diseases killing people most all over the world and it's worst in our part of the world due to limited resources.
I work at the clinical side of healthcare and you can hardly see many people lying down on hospital beds for days (admission) because of HIV infection. And yet, every year, we hear of frightening national statistics of new infection.
Tackle the disease of stigmatization first, so that people can easily open-up about the disease to significant others. This would help turn the tide on the spread of the disease in the country.
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