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HIV/AIDS policy - where are the grandparents?
Reposted courtesy of INTAIDS 2002 (E-mail: [email protected])
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As the Barcelona Conference discussed future HIV/AIDS policy, new statistics from the UN indicate that the rate of HIV infection shows little sign of slowing. So far, major conferences on HIV/AIDS have scarcely considered older people, either as infected persons or as carers for infected family members. HIV/AIDS is considered a disease of the young, but in fact it affects the whole family and all ages.
Last year, the UN's special session on HIV/AIDS in New York acknowledged that older people need to be supported in their key role as carers. But it did not recognise that older people are also at risk of infection, nor did it sufficiently emphasise the far-reaching social and economic impact that HIV/AIDS is having on many families, especially the poorest.
In Asia, the rate of infection has risen rapidly in countries such as China and Vietnam, where HIV/AIDS was previously not recognised as a major problem. Recent reports from the region suggest that the increase in intravenous drug use may be fuelling the rise in infection. In Vietnam, parents and grandparents of intravenous drug users feel afraid and helpless. An older woman whose two sons are drug users says: "I don't know if they are infected or not. Maybe they are, because they use needles. I have told them many times that injecting drugs is a risk for HIV infection, and I asked them to get tested, but they won't listen."
"Most people believe that older people are sexually inactive so they cannot get AIDS," says an older woman from Cambodia. "When some rural people have diarrhoea caused by AIDS, they think they have malaria."
Families with HIV-positive members face the financial drain of medical expenses, the strain and heartbreak of nursing their children and seeing them die, and the difficulties, especially for impoverished older people, of bringing up grandchildren.
The stigma is worst. For many older people, the loneliness, insecurity and stigma attached to HIV infection is hardest to bear. An older Vietnamese woman looking after her HIV-positive niece says: "People, when they come to the house, don't even dare to drink a cup of water for fear of infection...this is very painful." Another older person commented: "Vietnam has the tradition that older people can depend on their children, but this is no longer the case".
For further information on the impact of HIV/AIDS on older people in Asia,contact HelpAge International's Asia Development Centre: [email protected]
or visit their website at: www.helpageasia.com
HelpAge International is a member of the Stop AIDS Campaign, a coalition of over 15 AIDS and development organisations raising awareness in the UK on the global impact of HIV/AIDS. Visit the Helpage International website at: www.helpage.org
or the Stop AIDS Campaign at: www.stopaidscampaign.org.uk
Contact person:
Fiona Clark, Policy Officer
HelpAge International,London,UK
E-mail: [email protected]
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