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HIV message taken the wrong way
Buhle Khumalo The Star, May 28 2002. Reprinted courtesy Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
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A man spent five years believing that being HIV-positive meant he was in good health.
His doctor gave him the diagnosis in a note because the man was deaf.
Unfamiliar with the term "HIV-positive", the man thought "positive" meant it was something good.
He finally understood that he was terminally ill during a workshop on HIV and AIDS last year.
He died a fortnight ago.
The story was told by Hendrietta Bogopane, spokesperson for the South African National AIDS Council, at a conference on AIDS and the disabled in Johannesburg on Tuesday.
"We found out last week, when we invited him to the indaba, that he was buried a fortnight ago," said Bogopane.
At the conference, a two-year report was given to Deputy President Jacob Zuma outlining how messages on HIV and AIDS should be disseminated for people with disabilities.
Zuma said young disabled people were entitled to the same messages as their peers were getting from programmes such as loveLife. "People with disabilities are not a homogeneous group," he said.
The report said a problem was that society believed disabled people did not have sex.
"It is almost like the disease is for people without disabilities," said Bogopane.
Zuma said disabled people were particularly vulnerable to disease because they were often abused.
There was a myth that sex with a disabled woman or child cured HIV and AIDS "because of their pureness and innocence", said the report. |
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