Inter Press Service - July 15, 2004
Moyiga Nduru

Ludfine Anyango is living with HIV. "I was diagnosed with the virus nine years ago," 32-year-old Anyango told IPS.

It's people living with the virus like Anyango who have demystified the disease in Africa. And, now, they are sharing their experiences in Asia at the ongoing 15th International AIDS Conference in the Thai capital.

The conference has attracted over 15,000 delegates and is due to end on Jun. 16.

"People living with HIV/AIDS in Africa killed the stigma. We broke the stigma. We showed society that we can still remarry after losing a spouse," she told a meeting on 'Sharing Experiences: Africa and Asia', organised by Action Aid, an international charity.

Anyango, who is the national HIV/AIDS coordinator for Action Aid, in Kenya, said it was common to hear that in Asia the virus causing AIDS only exists among sex workers, injecting drug users and men having sex with men.

"But these people do not live in a vacuum. They live in society," she stressed.

Asia now accounts for about one in four of the world's new HIV infections each year and is home to an estimated 7.4 million people living with HIV/AIDS, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

The United Nations agency says over one million people have contracted HIV in the region, and an estimated 500,000 died of AIDS-related illnesses.

The worst affected is India where an estimated 5 million people were infected by the end of 2002, the second highest figure in the world after South Africa.

India's National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) says HIV/AIDS is gradually spreading into rural areas and the general population.

In states such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur and Nagaland, HIV prevalence among pregnant women has crossed the 1 percent threshold, while in Gujurat and Goa, HIV prevalence among populations with high-risk behaviour is 5 percent, according UNAIDS.

Awareness and knowledge of HIV/AIDS remain weak in rural areas and among women, and there is not yet persuasive evidence that the epidemic is being curbed in individual states, let alone in the country as a whole, UNAIDS said.

"We need to act fast. If we don't, then we are going to become like Africa," Parinita Bhattacharjee of the India-Canada Collab HIV/AIDS Project in the southern state of Karnataka told the meeting.

"We are seeing a lot of sick people. We are seeing death. We are seeing discrimination in India," she said. "We are not learning fast enough."

Bhattacharjee warned that Asia is making the same mistakes as Africa during the early days of the pandemic.

"Mistakes were made in Africa," Caroline Sande-Mukulira, Action Aid's director for southern Africa Partnership programme, who is based in the South African capital, Pretoria, told the meeting.

When the disease first hit Africa, she said, "HIV/AIDS was regarded as a health problem."

"But it's more than that. It's a problem of poverty; it's a problem of development," she pointed out.

Sande-Mukulira attributed blame, too, on conservative religion.

"Religious leaders also made mistakes. They moralised the problem. They didn't provide support and care. That was a big mistake that Asia should avoid," she stressed.

Africa also shared experiences with Asia on AIDS orphans.

While HIV prevalence remains low, absolute numbers of orphaned children are much higher in Asia, which has almost four times more children. In 2003, there were 87.6 million orphans due to all causes in Asia, double sub-Saharan Africa's 43.4 million, according to the latest UNAIDS report.

"Asian countries should try to prolong the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS so that they can look after their children to avoid AIDS orphans," Sande-Mukulira said.

In Africa, the extended family provides the safety net for many and Sande-Mukulira said their roles are being overstretched due to the increasing numbers of children made orphans by their parents dying of AIDS.

"If the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS are prolonged, the issue of orphans will diminish," she added.

On the issue of antiretroviral drugs or ARVs, Dr Omokhudu Idogho of Action Aid in Nigeria said African governments were neglecting their responsibilities of caring for people living with HIV/AIDS and left them to the communities, instead, to provide support.

According to UNAIDS, in 2003 and estimated 3 million people in sub-Saharan Africa became newly infected with HIV. "But only 400,000 people are on life-prolonging ARVs in the African region," Idogho told IPS.

In Africa, he said "The government has abandoned its role and left people living with HIV/AIDS in the care of the communities."

Cultural barriers, like religion and taboo around sex, also need to be broken if a headway is to be made in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Asia.

"Asian people should try to address the issue of cultural barriers which fuel the spread of the disease," said Action Aid's Alfred Okema whose country, Uganda, has become a role model in the war against HIV/AIDS.

Indeed it was acknowledged that Africa's mistakes must not be repeated in Asia.

"Africa's experience shows that HIV can destroy development gains by decades," Farouk Khan, who is on the health parliamentary committee in Bangladesh, told the gathering.

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