The Glitches Of Being HIV Negative

Correspondent | Monday December 19, 2016 13:21

I am of the view that a new macro trend is developing. The more people test for HIV the bigger the macro trend grows. Look, the HIV phenomenon is by nature dividing people into two groups whose existence is by default, not by design. The HIV positive and the HIV negative.

First, let us go to PMTCT in the family. It is affirming that there are two groups of family members who are either positive or negative. Couples testing further reaffirm that there might be discordant or same status. That differentness or discrepancy is what I am interested in - yes, the medical and social interplay.

In Botswana, get me clear, I have no doubt, we have gone miles in implementing a ‘rubber-rake approach’ to curb the scourge. It has become normal for us to accept HIV like any other terminal illness. We have long transcended the ’AIDS is a monster era’. Programmes in education, communication and prevention are indeed relevant and vibrant. However, in celebrating achievements, we tend to forget key players in the fight who, in essence, are our yardstick against infection rate.

These are people who have tested negative, who are testing negative, who tested negative, who may test negative or who will test negative. These are the people whom were counselled during testing and were told to condomise and be faithful to one partner.

This is a part of a group of people that is sexually active. These are the people who have to accept people living with HIV, whether they themselves have accepted their HIV negative status or not. Above all, these are the people who, like others, have to procreate. We need more and more HIV negative people to go public to bare testimony and, on a larger scale, to reconstruct our psyche as a people.

Then, to say the least, vulnerable groups such as the disabled and people living with HIV were regarded such because they did not have the same equal opportunities. Nonetheless, HIV negative people need thorough counselling, and sustainable social and legal support bases.

There is a lack of focus on that group of individuals, more especially to facilitate behavioural change. If treatment for people with HIV since the inception of the Home-Based Care model is tapping on the family as a support base why can’t responses, if any, to the condition of people living without HIV infection effectively tap on that industrious resource called the family.

Routine testing seems to target individuals who are reluctant to test every after three months. Great initiative! But the ones who repeatedly and regularly test negative are left out in the game. It now sounds like if they don’t or haven’t tested positive, they have to fend for themselves until they test positive when a plethora of support will be at their disposal.

Some may test negative not because they have been extra careful during sexual contacts, may be just sheer luck, or anatomy, who knows. To test people HIV negative is easy, but for the society “to keep them it’s a problem and to lose them is a bigger problem,” so goes a reggae beat.

The new programme at The Ministry of Health and Wellness aimed at giving HIV negative people some ARVs to reduce infection rate during unprotected sex appeared to be the solution but it is rudimentary in nature and at infancy stage and does not in any sense take in to account the underlining risks, little as they may be, and the legal rights of the one HIV negative.

Remember the breastfeeding versus formulae milk misinformation in to which most mothers were inducted in the-not-so-long past! It was a hoax to HIV positive mothers and who knows may be this one is also a hoax to HIV negative people. But who are we to know the difference especially at this stage of the programme?

It may not surprise to see people who have tested negative being verbally abused in relationships or risking to have unprotected sex because they, to me, are neglected. Some people who have tested positive are so obsessed with their rights that they forget to protect the rights of HIV negative partners as well.

They spend sleepless nights wishing their partner might one good day wake up with a status similar to theirs. My message to HIV negative individuals is that you do not drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying in there. It is all in the white matter found in the skull.

Another meaning of the word discipline is self-control. Luck is almost like go sela madi, you can neither learn it, nor teach it. Remain negative and stay positive. Positive attitude is not an event, it is a journey.

Baileng Modikweng