Though HIV/AIDS awareness is growing, the epidemic continues, in part due to denial of the problem by governments in countries most affected by the disease, panelists said at Boston University Tuesday.
Researcher James Maynard, Harvard School of Public Health Program Manager Aziza Ahmed, and Sister Sheila Flynn, founder of the Kopanang Community Trust in South Africa, discussed the human rights issues associated with the HIV/AIDS global pandemic at the George Sherman Union Auditorium to an audience of 30 in a discussion commemorating worldwide AIDS week.
Flynn, who said she works with women and children in South Africa affected by HIV/AIDS, brought one of the women in her program to the discussion, which is part of a series around campus.’
Although the panelists said most of the people they worked with know the disease can only be transmitted sexually or through blood, it does not mean they take the necessary precautions to prevent its spread.’
‘Knowledge is not always power,’ Maynard said.’
Even with knowledge, many government leaders say abysmal things when it comes to the prevention of HIV/AIDS, Ahmed said.’
There has been a long history of political denial in South Africa, Ahmed said. South African President Jacob Zuma publicly said he had taken a shower after sexual intercourse with a woman, so he would not get HIV.’
Human rights also have an effect on the transmission and spread of HIV/AIDS, the panelists said. Many women are victims of sexual abuse, domestic violence and rape, even from their husbands, Flynn said.’ ‘
Flynn said her foundation takes care of many South African orphans who have lost their parents to the disease and have also been contaminated by their mothers at birth. Even so, she said, not all HIV-positive children were infected at birth.’
‘There was this 2-year-old HIV-positive little girl that jumped on my lap one day,’ Flynn said.’
She said the woman who brought her to Flynn had found her on the streets in the middle of the night.
‘She told me the little girl had just been gang-raped when she found her,’ Flynn said.’
Flynn said the world was very far from universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS, partially because of governments’ restrictions on availability.
Ahmed said she attended many United Nations meetings and often was shocked by some countries’ resistance as well as new laws they enacted regarding medication, sexual education and homosexuals and women with HIV/AIDS.’
‘In Sierra Leone, they criminalized woman-to-baby transmission,’ Ahmed said, ‘So basically, if you have HIV and get pregnant, you are committing a crime.’
College of Engineering graduate student Azatuhi Ayrikyan discussed universities’ involvement when controlling the prices of new retroviral medication invented within their labs.’
Six years ago, Yale University got the patent for a drug treating AIDS, but it was so expensive Doctors Without Borders could not afford it, Ayrikyan said.’
‘After Yale negotiated with the laboratories and still didn’t bring the price of the drug down, some Yale students started tying themselves to fences,’ he said. ‘And two years later, a generic of the drug was created at a much cheaper cost.”
The panelists agreed students’ influence was more powerful than some might think. They said stigma still exists regarding HIV/AIDS, in all countries, in all classes.’
‘There’s a lot more HIV than we think,’ Ahmed said. ‘Not that the numbers are wrong, but there are a lot of people around us who have it and we don’t know.” ‘
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