I’m just getting back from a prolonged stay in Chipata town that
lasted 12 days. I was going a bit crazy being away from my village for so long
but I was asked to come in for a series of project workshops. One was a TEFL
Counterpart Workshop where all education volunteers in my province came with an
English teacher from their respective school… More on that another time. The first
workshop I attended was based entirely on HIV/AIDS and how we can sensitize our
communities on prevention, care and treatment. Again, this workshop was designed
for a volunteer to bring a counterpart from their community so we could learn
and plan together. The program was eye-opening and in my opinion, it truly
prepared us to address the crisis of HIV in this country in our own small ways.
In the United States we learn from an early age, I think it
was maybe grade 5 for me, about sexual health and everything relating to STIs
that we never wanted to know. It came up in health class every other year until
graduation, it was a part of the curriculum and whenever HIV was taught, I
remember thinking of it as something that was not common and could never happen
to me or anyone I knew. In the US, less than 1% of the population is infected
with HIV. This statistic is partially skewed if you take into account that the
rate is higher in densely populated, urban areas and almost non-existent in
more rural areas (i.e. where I come from). Either way, before coming here HIV and
AIDS was something that never came up in my day to day life and was something I
hardly thought about, which is really sad considering how serious this epidemic
is in our world. It is a crisis that we all need to face together.
I’ve assembled some information
about the prevalence of HIV and included some hard-to-face truths. I don’t know
how important it is to site my sources in a blog format but most of these numbers
came from http://aids.gov and from the Zambia
Demographic and Health Survey. Please remember how important it is that
we all understand what is going on in our world and keep in mind that it is
something that needs to be addressed.
From the most recent global
statistics, 33.4 million people are now living with HIV/AIDS. Of those
infected, 97% are living in low and middle-income countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. As I’ve seen now in my everyday life, most people
who are either living with HIV or who are at risk have little access to prevention, care, and treatment. In
other parts of Zambia and throughout the world there is no help at all. One of the most important things to
understand is the impact that HIV has on a country’s development. “The HIV
epidemic not only affects the health of individuals, it impacts households,
communities, and the development
and
economic growth of nations. Many of the countries hardest hit by HIV also
suffer from other infectious diseases, food insecurity, and other serious problems.” I can’t stress enough how true that is
from what I’ve seen and heard during my last year here.
As of 2008, the prevalence of HIV in Zambia was reported at
14.3%. This number came from a nationally representative sample of over 13,500
Zambians. That’s about one in seven
Zambians, ages ranging from 15 to 49, that are known to be HIV positive. There
is a huge fluctuation between rural and urban areas; almost one in four people living
in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital city, are known to be infected. A significantly
higher percentage of women are known to be HIV positive than men, 16% of women
compared to 12% of men in general and 23% of women compared to 16% of men in
urban areas. This is largely due to the sexual violence that is common in
Zambia. That is a subject all on it’s own, so I’ll save it for another time but
the fact is that girls here aged 15-24 are nearly twice as likely to be HIV
positive than the boys their age.
Unfortunately, it’s known that the majority of Zambians have
never been tested for HIV although most do know where to get a test. There is a
stigma towards it and a general attitude about sexual practice that many
Zambians, particularly Zambian men, won’t change. It’s hard to grasp that some of the most common
prevention methods are shunned because of how people were raised to think about
sex, but with the death of around 89,000 people from AIDS every year and an
estimated 630,000 AIDS orphans left behind, more and more Zambians are
listening.
The workshop I attended was sponsored by PEPFAR (Presidents
Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief), which comes from the American government. The
budget that PEPFAR set aside for Zambia alone in 2007 was $216 million for prevention,
care and treatment and an additional $25 million to aid in the prevention of
mother-to-child transmission. I can’t even fathom how much money that really is
or where it all goes to but if the trends continue from the previous survey
done in 2001-02, we can expect at least a slight decrease in HIV prevalence.
The last survey was done in 2007 so we will have updated statistics available
this year. It’s an exciting time to be here, to have substantial evidence that
our program is either working or needs work.
As a Peace Corps Volunteer living in sub-Saharan Africa, one of
my primary goals is to spread knowledge about HIV and AIDS and to promote safe
sex and regular testing. Currently my counterpart, Josephine, and I are
planning a Voluntary Counseling & Testing (VCT) event for all residents of
Chadiza. Josephine has an Anti-AIDS club and I have my Boys & Girls Club so
we are working together with our kids to plan and perform dramas at the school,
in the market and at the local clinic. These dramas will help to sensitize the
community and to promote the event, which will take place at the end of March.
(Side note, all Zambians love dramas. They love watching them but more than
anything they love performing. If you’ve ever seen a Nigerian film, and I don’t
recommend it, you’ll have an understanding of the acting chops out here. Still,
it’s a nice way to teach and to learn.) I’m excited to be forming and expanding
my own goals as a Peace Corps Volunteer and am very glad to have a deeper
understanding of life here.
Even if this is something that does not affect you directly,
there is still a lot to be done, whether by spreading knowledge on prevention,
aiding in the care of someone who is living HIV positive or contributing to an
organization that is providing relief.
http://www.pepfar.gov
