Everyone knows someone
In an industry where every word and column inch means the difference between breaking even or making a profit, the Sunday Times must be applauded for their “Living with HIV – everyone knows someone” column.
This weekly column is written by people living with the disease in one form or another and who use this forum to reflect on its impact on themselves or their families and loved ones.
While the South Africa media often reports on the big, news-related HIV and AIDS stories such as when Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimag makes her ignorant and unforgivable remarks about antiretroviral treatment, the stories of individuals and the ordinary, human face of the pandemic are still not covered enough.
In the newspaper’s January 21 2007 edition, for example, an anonymous woman wrote about not knowing where she got the virus, her fear of disclosing her status to her 10-year-old daughter, and her frightening admission that she doesn’t know her daughter’s status. “My biggest fear is taking my daughter for a test, so I have not done that yet,” she writes. “My world would crumble if I were to find out that she is HIV positive.”
In her column, entitled “Sometimes I wonder where I got HIV”, she writes that she had two boyfriends before getting married, and now wishes she’d asked her partners to go for HIV tests. She says she wishes that there were a way you could trace back to the day you were infected.
“I sometimes ask myself where and when did I get the virus? I think I have lived a relatively normal life… It’s disappointing that the medical world still cannot trace the history of the virus in the body so one could know with certainty when one contracted it.”
Rose Thamae, who wrote “A funeral every week, but also a life saved” for the series is a grandmother who has been gang-raped twice and contracted HIV. She points out that there are dozens of others in her community infected and affected by the disease.
“Two years ago, during the month of August – Women’s Month in South Africa – we staged a vigil for every night that a woman died as a result of an AIDS-related illness in our community, as a way of demanding the roll-out of antiretroviral drugs or ARVs. We were out there every night; in other words, at least 31 women died during that period.”
The virus has as many faces as the people who suffer from it. In “A mother buries her pretty girl”, Guy Ellis wrote about the death of his employee’s 19-year-old daughter due to AIDS-related illness. He described in a poignant, personal tone, the effect of this girl’s pregnancy, subsequent HIV-positive results after an HIV test and the relief when the family found out that her child, now two, is negative. Ellis highlights the pain of her mother, taking readers to her tear-jerking funeral, where her little boy sits on a pew, his legs dangling, and finally, he decries her unnecessary death:
“She died on a Monday, a victim not so much of HIV/Aids, but of neglect and lack of humanity by the medical community.
The funds that pour in to help with HIV just do not get to the right areas. She was diagnosed with TB after three visits to the clinic and then hospitalised and discharged when still very, very ill. This happened again. They said they needed the beds for sicker people.
It did not matter that antiretroviral treatment could have given her another 25 years. The irony is she died of TB, not Aids — but TB to which she was susceptible through her status.”
Author of the autobiography AidsSafari Adam Levin also contributed to the column, with a tongue-in-cheek look at the benefits of AIDS fundraising events in his article, “Positively fabulous”.
“Welcome to the world of star-studded charity galas – where masses of rich folk devour beef fillet and goats’ cheese ravioli in the name of poverty and disease… The Sun City Superbowl is aglow with fine china and twinkly, red paraffin flame thingies atop mammoth silver candelabras. Lebo Mathosa is belting out a hit in blonde extensions and a wildly fringed mini, and I’m wolfing down a very artful tuna carpaccio floating on slivers of radish, prepared by one of five Michelin star chefs flown in for the occasion. “It’s a Poz Fab event sweetie,” as Patsy might say. “Positively Fabulous! Aids darling! Get it?”
The “Living with HIV – everyone knows someone” column offers a range of both personal and professional reactions to HIV and AIDS. It’s a fantastic way the Sunday Times has of contributing to fighting the scourge. Not only does it give people a chance to share their stories, but also these stories are read by hundreds of people nationwide, contributing to awareness and understanding of the disease and breaking down the stigma around it at the same time.
Because HIV and AIDS has such a devastating, yet still understated effect in South Africa, it would be good to see more newspapers following in the Sunday Times’ footsteps. – Akhona Cira