The Alex Hospice and Rehabilitation Centre commemorated World Aids Days with a message to men to get tested so that they know their health status.
This as research has revealed that while most women tested freely, men were secretive and avoided testing at clinics due to unfounded feelings of fear, shame and stigma.
The event, held under the theme, It’s in our hands to end HIV and Aids, reminded participants which included hospice patients, church and NPO representatives, Miss Alex finalist, Dipulelo Ngoma and school children that it was a collective responsibility of everyone to beat the disease. This by testing regularly to ensure they knew their status, encouraging others to do the same and, to stop mocking and discriminating those they suspected to be infected by merely looking at their weight or after seeing them at clinics.
Sister Prudence Siluma, a volunteer nurse at the hospice, urged the men to include their families’ health as part of their concern in their household leadership role. “This will be their contribution to ensure HIV and Aids-free homes is part of a bigger international objective of the World Health Organisation and UNAids to eradicate the disease by 2020,” she said.
This, Siluma added, would also require men, and everyone else, accepting their condition if infected, getting treatment and going on with their lives, as Aids no longer killed if they adhered to treatment. Siluma urged the public to also play a positive role by not being judgmental but rather educate those who were infected, regardless of any relationship to them.
Aggrinath Molose of the non-profit organisation, HIVSA urged for the inclusion of traditional healers in HIV/Aids treatment programmes. She said her organisation set up gazebos in several spots in the township for the public’s convenience, in particular, those who feared being seen going to a clinic for testing.
She urged husbands and fathers to collaborate with their wives in encouraging their grown-up children to also get tested regularly as infections may remain undetected within the window period.
Miss Alex hopeful, Ngoma encouraged people to test regardless of their physical looks. She said as a result of her slim physique, she has had to deal with rumours and murmurs of her being infected. “Weight is not a measure of one’s health but testing will set you free and enable you the freedom to achieve your dreams and goals,” she said urging the youth to get free testing regularly.
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