Doesn't everyone know about it already?
If there's so much AIDS in developing countries, everyone over there must know about it. So why is it still spreading? Millions of people around the world have no access to reliable healthcare information and often do not hear about HIV and AIDS until it is too late. Also, knowing information is only a small part of changing behaviour (ask any smoker you know!). To understand the spread of the virus, we need to understand the realities of life in poor countries.
Doesn't everyone know to use a condom?
When will people stop having unsafe sex? Surely everyone knows to use a condom now? "After I became ill and tested HIV positive I discovered that both my husband and his family knew that he had HIV before we were married." This woman from Kousalya, India is not alone in this experience.
Preventing HIV is more complex than simply the need to use condoms. For example, in many parts of the world, the number of children couples have measures their status in the community. Everyone has the right to choose whether to have children or not – and everyone knows it is not possible to have children while using condoms.
It is also estimated that even in the United States, where access to information, testing and treatment is good, 25% of people with HIV do not know they are HIV positive. This number is very significantly higher in developing countries.
Why is HIV such a problem in poor countries?
Why is HIV such a problem in poor countries? Poverty is one of the major causes of the spread of HIV and of people’s health decline to AIDS. Fighting HIV and AIDS in societies where the priority is finding enough food for the family each day will always be difficult.
Poor people in developing countries are often faced with difficult choices such as going hungry that night, or making money in whatever way possible to put food on the table. Often this involves selling sex and so increasing risk to HIV.
While the first choice involves immediate and definite risks (hunger), the second involves only possible risk (HIV infection). Even in countries where HIV rates are as high as 39%, there is still a 61% chance of not becoming infected. And even if one does become infected, it is often some years before illness and debilitation sets in. It is a risk some have no choice but to take.
Why is there stigma around HIV and AIDS, if so many people are affected?
How can there be stigma around HIV and AIDS in developing countries when so many people are affected? We all know that stigma surrounds HIV and AIDS, but there is a common belief that there is less stigma about HIV and AIDS in developing countries because so many people are affected. This is not the case. Societies everywhere are underpinned by accepted and unaccepted norms, values and behaviours – often relating to sex. In many African countries, for instance, AIDS widows are ousted from their homes and communities because, even though it is commonly accepted that men can have several wives and partners, the wives are almost always blamed for their husbands’ HIV infection. Prejudice and fear prevail and with fewer safety-nets such as government welfare support and women’s shelters, women and children in particular, often HIV positive themselves, find they are left with no money, home or belongings and without the skills to find work.
Anyone living with HIV in a developing country will tell you that the stigma applies everywhere, and people often conceal having HIV for safety reasons. All over the world the association of HIV with sexual behaviour, illness and death and specifically with highly-stigmatised issues such as homosexuality and drug use means that fighting HIV is more difficult. ActionAid works to challenge the stigma and prejudice that surrounds HIV & AIDS.
How does AIDS in developing countries affect me?
All these countries are so far away – AIDS over there doesn’t affect me. AIDS is having such a devastating effect on the workforce of so many countries that the ripples are being felt all over our increasingly-globalised world. Economically speaking, lost people equal lost markets and lost profit. But more importantly, morally our ultimate aim should be lives free from unnecessary suffering. HIV and AIDS is a preventable and manageable condition. We all have a responsibility to save suffering and lives, and our governments – who answer directly to us – play a huge part in helping to make this a reality.
"If AIDS doesn’t get them, something else will."
If so many people in developing countries have HIV and AIDS they must be used to dealing with it by now, and anyway, if AIDS doesn’t get them something else will. People should never have to get used to dealing with pain, tragedy and illness. HIV and AIDS decimates communities and lives and although those affected do find solutions and ways of coping, there is so much that could be done at the international level. Everybody has the right to a healthy life, and it is the responsibility of us all to help others around the world to achieve this.