Citation

Anamaria P. Sex. Health Exch. 1999; (3): 10-11.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, Royal Tropical Institute)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

12349767

Abstract

People with HIV/AIDS (PHA) begin to feel like victims when they accept the medical paradigm as an irreducible reality that HIV has turned them into infectious beings. The feeling of being a victim turns them into objects rather than actors and advocates, reducing their strength and motivation to survive. Through their experience, PHA believe that any effort to mitigate the personal and social impact of the epidemic should include the following components: 1) access to information and early diagnostic tests; support by an adequately constructed social network; 2) opportunities to break down isolation and create informal support networks with other affected persons; 3) develop skills to face crises as they occur; 4) mobilize the community in order to synthesize and improve the social environment; and 5) an opportunity for PHA to tell their stories. All these elements are strongly interrelated and rooted in the social body. After all, HIV/AIDS is a societal disease. It is easier for a PHA to assume self-responsibility when he/she is living in a society where laws are respected, dialogue is allowed, and where citizens are on equal footing with each other. Perhaps society cannot speak of empowering HIV-positive people in Latin America or Africa, but it can try to offer PHA a chance to articulate their own voice and develop their own activism, thus improving the conditions of their lives.

Language: en