Hiding In Vulnerability, H.I.V.

It is nothing new to us to turn a blind eye to behaviors that we deem immoral and we even attest that those are not present in our cultures or societies and they are by-product of western and Zionist corruption of our youth and digressions from our holy religion of Islam that offers the solution to all these problems are the cause of all those problems.

From that it follows that we don't have extra marital sex relationships, sex workers are non existent, injection drug users are not our children, brothers or sisters, and we surely don't have men who have sex with men for that is a western thing you know.

The sad thing is that ignorance towards those behaviors and others converge in aiding the prevalence of HIV/AIDS. So its only natural that we consider HIV/AIDS prevention to be a fringe issue, and we even have the statistics to back this up. For according to the ministry of health, as of 2004, there have been 361 recorded cases of which 136 cases of Jordanians contracting the virus. Looking at those numbers you would think that they are doing a splendid job in prevention !

While major strides have been taken in the campaigns under taken since 2002 in this field, the major problems faced by those campaign are still the same. Some of the good things that they have implemented were mandatory testing of foreigners staying in the country for longer than a month, this has helped to limit the exposure of the increased traffic that crosses the country and limit the exposure to the virus through that means. The testing of blood donators and blood bank supplies to ensure that they are contamination free.
Also the establishment of the HIV/AIDS hotline does help in answering any questions or concerns that people might have.

Now these are all fine, but taking a look at their site I couldn't happen but to notice a few issues; for starters the website is out of date, its naming not the previous health minister but the one before him. The data on there is more than 3 years old, plus they tend to preach morally when it comes to the issue which is not the best way to go about it( men having sex with men, sex workers, prisoners and injection drug users aren't even mentioned) .


There might be an explosion of HIV cases because its seen that there is no need to do the preventive work and encourage people to do voluntary testing. There is a higher percentage of people who test out only because symptoms appeared which might take anywhere from a year to 10 to appear. That means that through that period they have been able to infect others along the way.


So one of the main things that should be established is to try to reach out to those high risk communities, to get their trust enough for them to be educated about preventive methods.
One thing that they have done to achieve this is through peer education program. There isn't any statistics to measure the success or failure of such programs but I can't truly understand how a program that preaches the moral high ground as a preventive method would be hugely popular among sex workers for instance.

The preventive methods suggested by the ministry of health are as follows (by the way, they are not even mentioned in the English version of the website) ;

• Abstaining from pre-marital and extra-marital sex and being committed to one uninfected partner (they do indicate its a sin from the religious point of view)
  
• Using a condom correctly (whats the point if i did your previous step ? )
  
• Verifying that blood transfusions are free of the virus (is there any indication to tell whether the blood has been tested or not ? especially in heamophelia cases ?)
  
• Using disposable needles (Do they provide any free needles ?)
  
• Disinfecting medical equipment in the proper manner (to layman like me how am i supposed to know if they are doing it or not ? )
  

Based on the preaching embedded here it is highly unlikely that the campaign had any meaningful penetration of high risk groups.
Some of the solutions that come to mind are as follows;

• Establishing true anonymous testing (i.e. random number are taken and no follow up from any governmental arms, yes they do that now invading all ethics of patient confidentiality) . preferably this initiative to be removed from the ministry of health.
• Provide pre-test and after-test counseling and sexual education to high risk groups and students, either through seminars or through providing materials to interested individuals to help reach out to high risk groups that is void of moral preaching since that will do more harm than good.
  
• Abstinence approach to sexual education has been proved to be impotent, leave that to religious leaders and teachers rather than health educators.
• establish support groups and family education to HIV positive individuals, for they are mostly having to suffer on their own. while currently they are forced to suffer alone in silence atleast some support of a fund and legislation against discrimination at the work place will help to provide better living standards to those who fell ill.
• The hotline should have regular advertisement and emphasis should be noted that none of the calls are monitored to insure that the people who need it the most, they are mostly the groups that are ostracized and persecuted, are able to reach it paranoia free.
  
• Testing of prisoners to limit the prevalence of the disease in prisons. Also to educate them.
• Educating the health staff to deal with cases confidentially and humanely, rather than stigmatize a patient who came to them looking for aid.
  

I wish they would establish a free anonymous testing days in order for people of those high risk groups to voluntarily go and get tested, and establish the habit of ongoing bi-annual testing in order to reduce the chances of any insurgence in HIV cases.
While the efforts of the ministry of health are commendable and admirable, the national stigma of the disease is far from overcome and treatment of HIV positives is far from what it is hoped to be.
Although they are provided with free access to anti biotic cocktails they don't have access to the latest and more effective drugs which help to keep the symptoms under control. Also due to moral objections & cost, access to medications such as PEP and PREP is not available. So we still have a lot more work to do as a community.




To get more information about testing and information regarding AIDS/HIV:

• Jordan Red Crescent: Safety first AIDS/HIV program
  
  Telephone: 06-4765660 Email: safetyfirst@cyberia.com.jo
• Ministry of health: National AIDS prevention program
  Telephone: Amman 06 - 5697933
  06 - 5673436
  Zarqa 05 - 3936060
  Madaba 05 - 3243008
  Jarash 02 - 6353545
  Balqah 05 - 3550752

ps. One thing to note, there is a high correlation between economic booms and prevalence of HIV cases due to the fact that travelers tend to be one group that spreads the virus and these are usually that come over for periods shorter than a month. They are the ones that are not getting screened and it is highly likely that they would engage in sexual acts, or drug related activities with the locals. I already made this incoherent article long enough even though i have alot more to talk about, hopefully i'll do that on another occasion.

pps. the pics either include the source on them or they are from ACT UP paris campaigns which i especially like.