There’s more to HIV/Aids
IF you find yourself rolling your eyes at the mention of HIV and AIDS, you are probably suffering from a case of AIDS fatigue.
Lesego Maja
lesegomaja@caxton.co.za
If you find yourself rolling your eyes at the mention of HIV and Aids, you are probably suffering from a case of Aids fatigue.
The University of Johannesburg hosted an annual HIV and Aids Colloquium on 18 September, addressing pivotal HIV and Aids related concerns.
Mocke Jansen van Vuuren, a lecturer at UJ’s faculty of Art, Design and Architecture defines AIDS fatigue as “the heaviness and tendency towards inaction that people have when presented with any subject matter that deals with HIV and Aids”.
Jansen van Vuuren said students’ overexposure to HIV and Aids related information could be a possible factor to the lack of interest when dealing with the topic.
“It is good that students are informed and no one can argue with that because information is crucial, although it seems they have an overexposure to information that some of them have relatively shut down,” he said.
Dr Ramneek Ahluwalia, programme director for the Higher Education HIV and Aids (HEAIDS) programme, said higher education has more than just an informative role to play in alleviating HIV and Aids, sexually transmitted infections and Tuberculosis in the country.
“We have 23 beautiful universities with plenty of knowledge on HIV and AIDS, but that knowledge goes in books. That is the challenge for higher education,” Ahluwalia said.
Ahluwalia further mentioned that the days of HIV and Aids being a death sentence are behind us.
“HIV has just become another disease like diabetes. People living with HIV are guaranteed 30 more years of life, whereas it wasn’t so in the 1990s.”
Some of the most common issues that were addressed at the colloquium were the essence of testing and the fear of disclosing one’s status, especially university students.
Furrah Simbeku, of the Student Support Group for People Living with HIV (PLHIV) at UJ, said many students are afraid of disclosing their status due to the fear of being stigmatised. Simbeku also mentioned that people need to be aware that being promiscuous is not the only way one can be infected with HIV.
