The Daily Star
BEIRUT: This Sunday will mark three decades since the first detected case of AIDS and although the number of cases has stabilized in Lebanon, experts stress that stigma surrounding the disease and the discrimination faced by those infected must be tackled.
“For the past four years, the number of cases is almost stable,” said Rindala Berro, officer in charge at the National Aids Control Program.
The latest figures released by the American University of Beirut for 2010 show that 93 new cases were reported in 2010, bringing the total number of people affected by HIV/AIDS to 1,346.
Men are by far the most affected group, 89 percent of the cases in 2010, and homosexual and bisexual groups together represent some 35 percent of the cases.
“Lebanon is still a low epidemic country,” said Berro, explaining that the disease was mainly affecting four groups of the population qualified as “most at risk,” including MSM (men having sex with men), sex workers, intravenousdrug users and prisoners.
According to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, more than 34 million people worldwide had HIV, the virus which causes AIDS, at the end of 2010. There were an estimated 1.8 million AIDS-related deaths around the world in 2009.
Since the first five cases were recognized in Los Angeles in 1981, more than 60 million people have been infected with HIV and nearly 30 million have died of HIV-related causes.
“The main challenge in Lebanon,” said Berro, “is that there is a lot of stigma and discrimination associated with people living with HIV.”
She said people infected with the virus often face discrimination and risk losing their work because people do not understand the disease.
“People think that if they shake hands they’re going to catch the virus,” she said. “But [people with AIDs] have the right to work, have a family and access to health care.”
Nadia Badran, HIV/AIDS program coordinator at the health organization SIDC, agreed that AIDS-related discrimination needed to be confronted, and said she was also concerned with the increased number of cases reported in young people.
She warned that the number of 20- to 30-year-olds becoming infected was increasing, and not because of a lack of accurate information.
“They know condoms prevent HIV but they still don’t use them,” she said. “We need to work more on them having responsible behaviors, not only providing them information on the disease.”
The National Aids Control Program, working with NGOs like SIDC, carries out continuous awareness campaigns in universities and schools and with most at risk groups.
Since 2007, 23 counseling and testing centers have opened across the country and there are plans for more.
“These centers provide free, anonymous, confidential and professional HIV tests to those who think they’re at risk,” explained Berro, adding that the centers also offer counseling and medical references.
The NACP focuses most of their efforts on the most at risk groups, working in close coordination with several NGOs as these groups can be hard to reach, Berro explained.
SIDC bases its work on peer education, having people from most at risk groups raise awareness and provide members of their group with prevention tools. The peer-educator-based system gives social workers better access to most at risk groups.
“We have been training drug users to be peer educators under the NGO’s supervision to reach other drug users and distribute condoms and syringes,” she explained.
SIDC, which provides psychosocial services, follow-up, medical testing, referrals and financial support, also offers support and counseling to the relatives of HIV-infected family members, as well as a hotline.
Social workers acknowledge that some areas are more difficult to access and that different approaches are necessary, but Badran said they never faced problems when campaigning.
She said that partner NGOs conduct awareness campaigns, but are careful not to offend anyone. “They distribute condoms to sex workers for example, not everywhere on the street,” she said.
“Of course we’re not going to conservative areas to distribute condoms. We know where to go, what to do and who are the people we want to reach.”
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