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HIV/AIDS: common myths dispelled
Liz Clarke. 23 May 2003. Daily News. Republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
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A strong fusion between science and African culture has given more than 200 traditional healers from in and around Durban the tools to fight ignorance and prejudice surrounding HIV/AIDS.
Their graduation took place in Warwick Triangle on Friday, part of a programme developed by the University of Michigan in the United States to inform semi-illiterate and illiterate communities about HIV/AIDS.
Dressed in an array of brilliant, colourful beads, swathes of richly-hued cloth and praising the good spirits with her ishobi, Thembisile Dlamuka's face said it all. She was jubilant as she received a her graduation certificate, proving she has a sound and scientific knowledge of HIV/AIDS.
Like so many of the participants in this training and awareness programme, dispelling the myths surrounding the disease is going to be one of her biggest challenges.
"Many people believe that evil spirits are causing them to be sick," she said. "That is something we have to change."
So too are popular perceptions that the disease is carried by baboons, mosquitoes, certain long-beaked birds and stray dogs. Others blame HIV on scientist Wouter Basson and "white doctors with injections".
Said Jennifer Mathe, a volunteer Red Cross worker in the Kwandengezi area near Durban who completed her training this week: "Sexual behaviour is seldom mentioned by people in the community. It's a taboo subject, but I think this will change now that traditional healers are giving the correct information."
With their newfound education, Dlamuka and Mathe are among the new apostles able to go out into communities in and around Durban to spread a new message to those who have limited skills in reading and writing.
"When people don't know and when they are frightened, they will believe many things," said Dlamuka. "Now we can give them the truth. We can say this is what HIV looks like. This is what it does. This is what you need to do." A travelling healer, Dlamuka was one of 200 local traditional healers involved in the training programme.
Professor Nesha Haniff, who has overseen the training of more than 2 000 people countrywide, said it was "tremendously encouraging" to see the response to the programme.
"There is an enormous thirst for knowledge in this country and we need to find ways to ensure that basic knowledge about the disease is understood by everyone," she said.
After receiving her certificate at the Warwick Junction Renewal Centre in Durban on Friday, Dlamuka and her peers, many of them adorned in age-old traditional dress, sang and danced.
"This is a good day for us," said Dlamuka. |
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