Carriers of HIV can understand what sufferers of leprosy endured in times past, and most of that suffering arose from misunderstanding. Leprosy was once so feared that sufferers of the disease were banished to colonies or forced to walk about crying “Unclean!” to avoid all contact with non-infected people. They were regarded as filthy and were given up for dead.
Modern medicine has all but eradicated leprosy and the misinformation about what is now called Hansen’s disease.
But the fear the disease once engendered has left its traces in our language — the word “leper” is often used to describe someone who is or should be shunned for one horrible reason or another.
Too often, today’s “lepers” are those who carry the human immunodeficiency virus or suffer from AIDS. In the first of a series on HIV/AIDS, Wednesday’s Times Colonist carried the story of Nicole, a young woman who lives in dread of being exposed as someone with HIV.
The 30-year-old divorcee wants to find a father figure for her children and a husband who will love her, but relationships have ended abruptly when she revealed she has HIV. Her surname was not published because she felt she couldn’t risk having her employer find out she has the virus. Her quality of life suffers because of the HIV/AIDS stigma.
Yet Nicole’s condition is not contagious, and she can expect to lead a near-normal life. There’s no reason she can’t have a healthy sexual relationship or bear more children. That’s because of highly active anti-retroviral therapy, which is a mixture of drugs that reduces the level of HIV in the body to the point where it can’t be detected and reduces the risk of transmission to almost zero.
That is not to downplay the seriousness of HIV/AIDS or dismiss the risk of transmitting the disease — advances in medicine should not let anyone think they can ignore the need to take the precautions necessary to avoid contracting the virus. It is still a major public-health problem and will continue to be as long as the virus exists.
But the rate of transmission and the number of deaths from the disease in B.C. has dropped dramatically over the past several years. B.C. has been a leader in the field — Dr. Julio Montaner, a professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia and one of the world’s leading HIV/AIDS experts, had a role in developing the retroviral therapy. Thanks to a drug regimen developed by B.C. Women’s Hospital researchers, no HIV-positive babies have been born in the past 15 years to HIV-positive mothers who underwent the full treatment.
Progress continues to be made in medicine, and B.C. is a leader in that progress, but public understanding and attitudes concerning HIV/AIDS have not kept pace with medical advances.
When the disease was first discovered, it was not understood and fear of it bordered on hysteria. Not without grounds — 20 years ago, a diagnosis of HIV was tantamount to a death sentence. But treatments are now highly effective and for many carriers of the virus, consist of one pill a day.
Attitudes have improved, yet there are still too many who fear any contact with HIV-infected people and believe using the same hairbrush, breathing the same air or sipping from the same glass will transmit the disease, never mind sexual contact.
While medicine can help people with HIV lead normal lives, they still live with the anxiety of having the virus. Prejudice and misinformed attitudes should not add to that burden.
