Garth Rattray
MANY YEARS ago, an intelligent, progressive, 30-something-year-old police sergeant asked me if he could contract a sexually-transmitted infection (STI) even if he did not ejaculate during intercourse.
The question raised ambivalent feelings within me. I was dismayed because I assumed that someone with his education and exposure would know that STI's can be transmitted by sexual intercourse, ejaculation or not.
I was however happy that he asked me because it gave me an opportunity to inform him of the facts. I was also very afraid because I realised that if someone of his ilk were so terribly uninformed; it did not bode well for our fight against STI's and HIV/AIDS in particular.
On April 9, I had the privilege of listening to journalist John Maxwell speak at a Caribbean College of Family Practitioners function. In his trademark provocative, informative, enthralling and eloquent style, he reiterated the fact that ignorance played a significant role in poverty, violence and several deadly diseases. His words hold especially true for HIV/AIDS.
LOSING FOCUS
Our violent and financially challenged society gives murders, crime, the budget, scandals and politics top billing. We therefore sometimes lose focus of the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV) epidemic within our midst and this surreptitious disease is set free to continue its deadly rampage.
The Ministry of Health estimates that it has already struck 1.5 per cent of Jamaicans, yet ignorance about this disease remains astounding. People are still having unprotected intercourse with relative strangers, while expressing fear of touching people known to be living with HIV/AIDS.
In and of itself, the virus is fragile. HIV cannot be contracted by casual contact. The common cold, influenza and even the chicken pox virus are far more infectious because they are easily spread by droplets and fomites (inanimate objects that transmit disease). If you think about it, you will realise that we must be a rather intimate race for HIV infections to have become so rampant.
Since the first case was discovered in 1982, just under 9,000 persons have been reported living with AIDS and only seven per cent of those are still alive.
Heterosexual males (straight men) account for the majority of those infected. The disease is already taking its toll among those in the most productive age group (1549 years of age), children and adolescents. Sixteen out of every 1,000 pregnant Jamaican women are infected with HIV.
We have been attacking the HIV/AIDS problem on a medico-scientific level but this approach remains disjointed without a unified front or the full co-operation of our citizens, communities and businesses. We certainly don't want to end up like sub-Saharan Africa where HIV has taken on pandemic proportions (more than 60 per cent of the 40 million people infected with HIV worldwide reside there).
The MOH has drafted a national HIV/AIDS policy (a blueprint) to guide our response to this dangerous epidemic that threatens to deprive the nation of its most productive adults, deprive children of their parents, deprive communities of their leaders, deprive us of our scarce resources and plunge us into a socio-economic disaster the likes of which we have never before seen or imagined.
WINNING THE FIGHT
The policy aims to facilitate the implementation of programmes for HIV/AIDS prevention, along with patient treatment, care and support. It aims to enlist the help and co-operation of individuals, families, communities, workplaces, healthcare facilities, various organisations and the legislature.
People need to realise that the control and eventual eradication of HIV/AIDS lie in education and the maintenance of human rights. As long as ignorance, prejudice and stigma remain attached to the disease, it will continue to be a serious threat to us all.
The inaugural National HIV/AIDS Policy meeting took place at the Pegasus Hotel one week ago. The second meeting will be at the Portmore Heart Academy this Thursday (May 19, 2005) at 6:30 pm.
The sooner we learn more about HIV/AIDS and embrace people living with the disease the sooner we will win the fight. People like you and me get HIV/AIDS. Those who say, "It can't happen to me!" are not only mistaken, they are also the most vulnerable.
Dr Garth A. Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practice.
