Quarterly Bulletin

      There is a lot of literature being developed to inform the public on HIV and AIDS including its causes, short-term and long-term effects on families, societies, nations and the entire global community. Despite such an abundance of knowledge, some religious men and women teach that HIV and AIDS is a punishment from God. William Chilufya, staff of Afya Mzuri in Lusaka, looks at the problems associated with such a teaching.

            HIV, the AIDS virus, has spread like wildfire around the world. Some say this pandemic is a punishment for sin. Others object and say that no stigma should be attached to it. The 2007 AIDS epidemic update, jointly published by UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation (WHO), puts the number of people living with the virus at 33.2 million, a significant decrease from the 2006 estimate of 39.5 million. 15.9% of Zambians are HIV infected.

            The HIV and AIDS epidemic is gradually yet steadily eroding decades of development gains, and has the potential of seriously undermining the country’s economy as well as social development. While misconstrued social perceptions surrounding people living with HIV and AIDS today creates wider problems than individual difficulty thereby proving to be a large contributor to the impenetrability in fighting the crisis.

STIGMA AND DISCRIMINATION

            Personal discrimination by society in general, family members, partners and friends of people living with HIV and AIDS further aggravates the problem. More often people with HIV are stigmatized. Stigmatisation has been known for impeding education, discouraging testing, encouraging the spread of the virus, and threatening the country's social and economic development as a whole. It has discouraged some people to disclose their medical status to family members, causing many to deal with the condition alone as well as infecting their partners.

            Recently PlusNews published an article about Almaz Hailu, 35, an HIV-positive widow living with an aunt and struggling to raise two young children in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. She narrated that her husband told her his ARVs were vitamins. Almaz narrates:

Three years ago, I started to see my husband taking pills every night after dinner. I did not question him for a while, but I became more suspicious and worried about him when he did it regularly. One night, I asked him if he is in good health. He persuaded me that he was overloaded with work and the doctor prescribed him a vitamin to give him liveliness. I admitted that I was also losing energy and getting tired, and asked him if I could share his 'vitamin'. He warned me that it was not good for a woman's health - I believed him. My husband confessed that he knew his status for three years and did not tell me, fearing that our family and neighbours would discriminate against us. He said the fact that the HIV virus is sexually transmitted shamed him.

            In Zambia there have been cases were people have been expelled from their family homes as a result of disclosing information on their HIV and AIDS status.

            It is of paramount importance to understand that HIV is an infection. It isn’t a moral judgment or a punishment because of who you are or the nature of your sexual or other behaviour. When we make it a moral issue then it leads to discrimination and stigmatisation. There are two main reasons attaching a lot of stigma to HIV: the way HIV is usually caught via sex and because HIV can kill.

PUNISHMENT OR DISEASE?

            During the Zambia National AIDS Network (ZNAN) National AIDS Conference I struggled to reason with a pastor who was saying that AIDS is a punishment from God. He further went on to explain how it is punishment by quoting Romans 6:23 “for the wages of sin is death.” After the argument with the pastor I recounted the words of Bono, the lead singer of the Irish rock band U2, "But if we are honest, HIV has also brought the worst out of the Church. Judgementalism, a kind of sense  that   people   who  have AIDS have it because they deserve it. Bono further said that somewhere in the back of the religious mind was this idea (that people with AIDS) reaped what they sowed. But people who think that way miss the entire New Testament, the New Covenant, and the concept of grace.

            In the Bible we read: when Jesus' disciples asked, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?" He replied, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him" (John 9:1-3). Most diseases and sicknesses are simply the result of random circumstances. The existence of diseases is a general punishment of all humankind because of sin in the world. But in most cases a sickness is not an individual punishment of the person who is sick. Jesus "took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses" (Matthew 8:17).

            The Bible speaks of howSatan struck Job with painful boils “from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head" (Job 2:7). Jesus said of the woman who was bent over and could not straighten herself, that Satan had bound  her for eighteen years (Luke 13:11-16). Paul describes his thorn in the flesh as “a messenger of Satan” (2 Corinthians 12:7). These afflictions did not result from the sin of the person in question but from Satan's activity. God allowed Job to be tested by sickness so the genuineness of his righteousness could be demonstrated. He did not remove Paul's thorn in the flesh so the power of His grace would be revealed.

            It can be well understood that HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases would somehow disappear if people obeyed God. According to the word of God, both men and women are to remain virgin until marriage, and a married couple is to remain faithful to each another. We read in Hebrews 13:4, "Marriage is honourable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge."

            A boy and a girl who keep themselves pure until marriage and remain faithful after marriage, can be a separate island. They may never come in contact with the cesspool of STIs that are passed around from person to person through sex.

            We hear forgiveness is possible under the New Testament on the basis of remorse and repentance. If you have committed fornication or adultery, you can repent and be forgiven. Your soul can be purified by the blood of Christ. You can determine that from now on you will keep yourself pure. Innocent babies can get HIV from the mother. People can contract STDs because of unhygienic medical or dental practices, or from a contaminated blood transfusion. A faithful spouse can be given an STDs by an immoral husband or wife. Such people are innocent victims and certainly should not be stigmatised.

REACHING OUT

            Clearly there is no justification for suggesting that God has unfavorably judged the people living with HIV and AIDS, nor that God has created HIV and AIDS as a punishment. Are all women with breast cancer victims of God's wrath? Are people suffering from sickle cell anemia been punished? Have Jews done anything to deserve Tay-Sachs disease? The answer is "No!" People of faith must, like Jesus Christ, reach out with a healing touch. Rather than being understood as God's retribution, suffering becomes an occasion for God's love to be demonstrated. When Christians reach out and touch those with HIV or AIDS, they can transform suffering into a living example of God's love.

            Following the example of Jesus, people of faith are called to eat with people with HIV and AIDS, and to share their home with them; to touch people with HIV and AIDS and give them intimacy and to heal people with HIV and AIDS. A faithful, intimate presence in the lives of those with HIV and AIDS, witnessing to them of Jesus' healing touch, is one of the most important responsibilities of all people of faith.

            Whatever our situation, whether in sickness or in health, if we are faithful to God we can look forward to a heavenly home where there will be no sickness or death. "And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with people, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away'" (Revelation 21:3,4).

            HIV and AIDS presents many challenges to health education, health services and policies, particularly for family and community members who are assumed to be responsible for the care of people sick with AIDS. The perception and meaning of AIDS is mainly negative. Fear of risk and contagion still remain.

            Health education has succeeded in making people aware of AIDS but there are still misconceptions relating to transmission through social contact,  provision of care and the thinking that. AIDS is a punishment from God. Correcting these would help to remove the stigma, uncertainty and fear of people with AIDS. The community needs more positive information and role models about people living with HIV.

William Chilufya
Afya Mzuri
Lusaka