Denyse Renne

Since the HIV virus was first iden­ti­fied in T&T in 1983, there have been var­ied re­spons­es from both pri­vate and pub­lic or­gan­i­sa­tions about how to deal with the virus.How­ev­er, for­mer tech­ni­cal di­rec­tor of the now de­funct Na­tion­al Aids Co-or­di­nat­ing Com­mit­tee (NACC) Dr Amery Browne says the present gov­ern­ment dropped the ball when it dis­band­ed the unit. He said with the clos­ing of the NACC sev­er­al years of progress had been lost.

"The NACC was do­ing ex­cel­lent work di­rect­ing the na­tion­al re­sponse to HIV in this coun­try but years of train­ing, ex­per­tise and in­sti­tu­tion­al strength went down the drain when the unit was dis­band­ed," he said.Browne said oth­er coun­tries through­out the Caribbean "were start­ing to learn from T&T and al­so move in the same di­rec­tion, recog­nis­ing that we were tak­ing the cor­rect steps in deal­ing with HIV."He said the clos­ing of the NACC was a bad de­ci­sion.

"It's not just a health care is­sue, and that has been one of the down­sides over the past three years, where the sus­tained HIV ed­u­ca­tion and aware­ness has been al­lowed to slide. We can af­ford no com­pla­cen­cy on this is­sue," Browne said.

Stig­ma and dis­crim­i­na­tion, Browne said, were still preva­lent in so­ci­ety when deal­ing with HIV-re­lat­ed is­sues. He not­ed that sev­er­al fur­ni­ture stores across the coun­try, in their con­tracts for hire pur­chase, "state in black and white that per­sons (who are HIV-pos­i­tive) are ex­clud­ed from hire pur­chase.""So we still have a long way to go again be­fore we stop dis­crim­i­na­tion."He urged peo­ple who were sex­u­al­ly ac­tive to get test­ed and know their sta­tus.

Virus not death sen­tence

Be­ing HIV-pos­i­tive is not a death sen­tence, says co-or­di­na­tor/pro­gramme ser­vices of the Com­mu­ni­ty Ac­tion Re­source (CARE), David Soomari.He has been HIV-pos­i­tive for the past 18 years and ad­mits his life has changed since be­com­ing in­fect­ed."I am more prone to tak­ing bet­ter care of my­self. I ex­er­cise, eat right, make sure I take my med­ica­tion and try to re­main stress-free," he told the T&T Guardian.

Soomari said most of his strength comes from fam­i­ly mem­bers, who are "very sup­port­ive," but a lot of peo­ple in­fect­ed with HIV were not as for­tu­nate as he was and here­in lay a chal­lenge."In some cas­es you have fam­i­ly shun­ning its mem­bers by not al­low­ing them to sleep in beds, use the same uten­sils and even touch them," he said.

He said CARE, which had been in ex­is­tence for the past 23 years, served as a haven for peo­ple with the virus who need­ed as­sis­tance af­ter find­ing out they were pos­i­tive for HIV.When he first walked through the Barataria doors of CARE, Soomari said, he was not judged. He said that helped his con­fi­dence and pro­vid­ed him with the nec­es­sary skill and ed­u­ca­tion in the field of HIV care and treat­ment.

"Its been a jour­ney, one which I cher­ish every day of my life. I am more able to as­sist those who need help now," he said.That help has come through ed­u­cat­ing oth­er peo­ple and al­so be­ing part of a sup­port group.Say­ing CARE's clien­tele cur­rent­ly stands at 15 peo­ple, Soomari said the group en­gaged in con­fi­dence-build­ing and even had its own mantra: "I am HIV-pos­i­tive. I am not HIV."

He ex­plained that hav­ing HIV did not de­fine an in­di­vid­ual, since they could still car­ry on with their lives."I can still do things I want to do. I can still get mar­ried. I can still have HIV-neg­a­tive kids. I can still have a fam­i­ly and I can still en­joy life," he said.He said the mis­con­cep­tion re­mained that once you were HIV-pos­i­tive, "You will be suf­fer­ing in a hos­pi­tal bed and wait­ing to die" needs to be cor­rect­ed."I am liv­ing life. It's about self-em­pow­er­ment," he said.

Fund­ing for pro­grammes

Soomari ad­mit­ted there was a short­age of fund­ing for some non-gov­ern­men­tal agen­cies, such as CARE, and the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment on­ly "as­sists with the ba­sic op­er­a­tions" by rais­ing mon­ey through var­i­ous projects. These funds are then cir­cu­lat­ed to CARE's ed­u­ca­tion­al aware­ness pro­grammes through­out the coun­try.

"These projects al­low us to spread mes­sages and al­low the cor­rect in­for­ma­tion to be dis­sem­i­nat­ed."In the past, Soomari said, CARE had al­so worked with the Min­istry of Tourism. They have al­so done ex­ten­sive work in rur­al dis­tricts, such as To­co, Ma­yaro and Rio Claro, in a bid to sen­si­tise res­i­dents about HIV, and giv­en lec­tures at pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools.

Soomari agreed that the mes­sage of HIV and sex­u­al­ly trans­mit­ted dis­eases were more high­light­ed dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son and though he ap­plaud­ed that, he said the mes­sage should be all year round."This year, the tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val char­ac­ter Ba­by Doll was used in spread­ing the HIV mes­sage. We were po­si­tioned through­out the coun­try and spoke with peo­ple about their health and ad­vised them about safe sex."