Myths, beliefs and stigma.

This is in follow up to my last posting where I started to tell about HIV Committee Development Programme training that Linzi led last week and I participated in and as well as giving feedback and ideas to Linzi. I mentioned attitudes, perceptions, questions and ideas from the group of 11 participants and I want to share some of these with you. Before reading further you should know that some of these descriptions are quite graphic and unpleasant, but also necessary and education, so read at your own risk.

Many of the ideas that came up were similar to ones I had heard in Mozambique while I lived there from friends, colleagues and my students. Ideas such as when you use a condom you get HIV because it is being put in condoms to infect Africans, HIV is a punishment from God to sinners (yes, to these people, this does include babies, people who receive blood transfusions, as they are getting it because of “sins of the father” or something like that) and you can cure yourself of HIV if you sleep with a virgin or young child/infant. Yes, these are ideas that some (not all) of the participants either believed in or had heard, these “old wives tales” and many more where shared during the two-day training These are the backwards, contradictory and controversial beliefs that we are facing in this work and part of the reason that HIV is spreading so quickly and easily throughout much of Africa and the rest of the world.

It was clear from early in the training that the participants all had awareness of HIV/AIDS. Awareness in this instance purely meaning that they knew that it existed, created health problems and eventual death for many people and can be spread through sexual activities, blood transfusions, intravenous drug use, breast feeding, etc. Not all of the awareness that they had was correct or up to date but at the very least they had awareness. This means that the newspapers, radio programs, TV, schools, etc. had done their job of bringing awareness of the problem but awareness by itself doesn’t change behavior and lead to the necessary results to move forward and fight this terrible pandemic. Our real challenge as HIV/AIDS Consultants is to increase the knowledge of the participants, help them gain the skills and knowledge to make an informed decision about changing their behavior (and hopefully influence their family, friends, etc. to likewise change their behavior) and give them the incentive to do so. I will return to behavior change in a later email and explain more about how it is absolutely critical that this happens for the battle against HIV to be won.

One final thought to leave you with is about smokers, their reasons for smoking and reasons to not stop. I know many intelligent, well educated and informed people who smoke. These people have most likely read the packaging on cigarettes that says smoking is bad for their health, seen ads on TV and in magazines to quit smoking and lead a healthier life and maybe even known someone that has died of cancer or other smoking related illnesses yet these people continue, why? They are aware and informed but this on its own isn’t always enough to change their behavior and thus later we will return to the topic of behavior change.