Fatigue in discussing HIV and Aids issues shall be our undoing

I recently moderated a media round table discussion that featured some of the most accomplished health reporters in this country.

The main reason for the meeting was to discuss the growing fatigue within the media in reporting on issues touching on HIV and Aids.

A host of reasons were given, chief of which was that after more than three decades of the HIV response in Kenya, the narrative has grown old and is no longer ‘interesting’ or in media parlance, does not make good copy to the targeted readers.

The meeting also brought up an issue that needs speedy intervention by all the players in Kenya’s public health sector, that in the eye of the media, the emerging non infectious diseases such as cancers and diabetes among others are of more concern since the public is most interested in these ‘new’ diseases.

While the National Aids Control Council (NACC) purposefully selected the participants to the media round table for obvious reasons, the feelings expressed at that meeting are not any different from the prevalent attitude within the general public.

That as a country, we have become weary of discussing issues of HIV and Aids and whenever we do, it does not feature as a clear and present public health concern.

This is rather unfortunate because the 2015 HIV estimates tell that we had 72,000 new HIV infections among adults. This was a reduction from the more than 88,000 recorded in 2013, so while we are certainly making progress, the numbers are still unsustainably high!

In my experience as a public communicator, I am aware that most people will read the above statement and conclude that since we are actually registering progress in the reduction of new HIV infections, there is no cause for alarm.

So here is something to take away; that of the 72,000 new adult HIV infections recorded in 2015, more than 35,000 or 46 per cent were among adolescents and young people aged between the ages of 15 to 24 years.

INFECTIONS INCREASED

That while new HIV infections reduced among all the other age groups, new infections among adolescents and young people actually increased exponentially from 29.3 per cent in 2013 to 46 per cent in 2015! So, what seems to be the problem?

I have alluded to one of the issues above — that we as a nation have grown lethargic to discussing issues of HIV and Aids and no longer consider the epidemic important. We have certainly forgotten that Aids is the leading killer among adolescents and young people in Africa and in Kenya and the second leading killer among the cohort globally.

However, the most pressing problem and the fuel for the above numbers is HIV stigma, that because we have grown weary of issues relating to HIV and Aids, whenever we talk about it, it is often in negative terms. The prevalent question that I have heard many a time is ‘who still gets infected with HIV in 2016’?

We have become very judgmental of those living with HIV and continue to disregard them as being of loose morals or getting comeuppance for some ills that they committed in the past.

In fact, when the NACC conducted a HIV stigma index study in 2015, the data revealed that 44 per cent of Kenyans believe that people living with HIV are promiscuous and 61 per cent think that HIV is a punishment for bad behaviour. HIV stigma has been fingered as the biggest obstacle towards adolescents and young people accessing HIV services.

If we continue with the trend of not talking about HIV in our homes, with our children, in our schools, colleges and universities, if we fail to mainstream HIV issues at our work places, if we continue to view HIV and Aids as other people’s responsibility, if we continue to perpetrate and condone HIV stigma and discrimination, then the epidemic shall remain a public health threat for decades to come.

Remember, that we are all positive until proven HIV negative. Let’s stop stigma sasa hivi!

Mr Ohaga is head of communication, National Aids Control Council; [email protected]