HIV/AIDS 1 of 3 – Basic information (Sally Smith)

Our topic today on MemCare by Radio is the HIV Virus, and my guest is Sally.  She lived for many years overseas and developed and ran an HIV/AIDS prevention, education and care program.  It included the development of a counseling program for nurses as well as school curriculum.  Today she'll be sharing an introduction with us and you'll really hear from her heart about her thoughts about people who are living with the AIDS virus.  So I welcome you, Sally, to our program.

Hello, it's good to be able to talk to you today.  The first thing I want to say is that people with HIV/AIDS are really no different to you and to me, the most important thing is to not be afraid of them, and they need our love.  They need our care.  They need our support, and that we can't catch AIDS by just getting to know them.  One of the most dangerous things I think in the world today is the fact that the people with HIV and with AIDS are so stigmatized and they are pushed away from society.  We don’t care about them any more and that makes it something that everybody else is afraid of.  I think if there is one message that I'd want you to go away from this radio program with today it would be to love and care for the people that you find in your community who have HIV and who have AIDS. 

Well, I think your opening remarks were very helpful because they clear up some misconceptions many of us have -- I know I did -- about AIDS.  I guess I thought if I was in the same room with someone who had the AIDS virus I could get it, but it doesn't seem that that's the case.  Help us know a little bit more about this virus that a lot of people are concerned about.  How can you get AIDS?  Is it really dangerous?

It's not really as dangerous as we tend to think of it.  There are actually only four ways you can catch HIV/AIDS.  It's not transmitted by coughing and sneezing, like a cold.  It's not transmitted by giving a big hug.  You can't catch it from hugging.  You can't catch it from eating a meal with someone, from using the same knives and forks or cups and plates.  So if you're in a restaurant, if you're in a home, if the cups and plates haven't been washed too well, you don't need to be afraid of that because the virus doesn't transmit in that way.  It doesn't transmit through insects, through mosquitoes and mosquito bites.  Sharing a flat with someone, sharing a home and a bathroom with someone, you're not going to catch it from the insects or the mosquitoes that are around that might bite them and might bite you.  It's not going to happen, because that's not the way the virus transmits.  Actually, HIV as a virus is a very poor infectious agent.  You're actually much more likely to catch hepatitis.  That's about, I think, 100 times more efficient as a transmitter just as an infectious agent.

So how can you catch HIV?  I think that's what you need to know.  You can find out you can't catch it through the normal everyday living activities.  There are basically four ways that HIV can transmit itself, and the first one is through sexual intercourse, either between a man and a woman or between two men, and it's when sexual fluids are exchanged that the virus can pass from one person to another.  So one way to protect yourself from HIV is to make sure that you decide to have your sexual relationship with someone you know well and you trust and that relationship is ongoing, that you remain faithful to that person and they remain faithful to you, and that you know that one another are not infected with HIV.  So you might know that because neither of you have had a sexual relationship before.  You might know that because you talked about it and you decided to go and have a test for the virus.  You might not know that.  So you might decide that to have that ongoing and stable relationship in a sexual way you actually want to have the test, to give that kind of confidence to one another.  Most of the time, however,  if you’ve got a relationship with someone who is  faithful to you and you're faithful to them, and you’ve both been just faithful to that one partner, there’s no risk of HIV. 

The second way it can be transmitted is through blood products.   So one thing we need to be careful of is accidents.  You don't tend to think of a road accident or a bicycle accident as being a risk for HIV.  It isn't in itself, but if you then go and have a blood transfusion where the blood hasn't been tested for HIV, then that can be a problem.  So I'd always advise workers who are going overseas to make sure that they have any routine kind of things,-dental work or surgical procedures that they know they're going to need that they're just be putting off for a while, to have those kind of things done before you leave your home country.  If you do have an emergency in the country that you are working in, you need to make sure that there are safe blood supplies in that place.  If you do some research, even now you maybe need to find out what the practices are at the local hospital because when you've had an accident and you've fallen off your motor bike, you might not be in a fit state to ask the questions when you get there.  You might need to have a kit in your home that has some blood substitutes in it if your local hospital doesn't have safe blood supplies.   That would be a way you could protect yourself. 

Another way that HIV is transmitted is through contaminated needles, syringes and that's again if you get yourself pricked or cut in some way. So obviously people working in a clinic or medical services  need to take this very seriously and most of the clinics and medical facilities should look very carefully at their infection control policies and how they clean the needles, how they sterilize the equipment.  If  you're not actually working in a medical facility yourself, you could have a clean needle and a clean syringe in your own medical pack.  Again, if you were caught traveling and needed an injection for some reason, you can give your own and you can be sure that its well sterilized. 

The last way is from a mother to a child.  That tends to frighten people, but it's really not as frightening as you think.  A mother can only transmit HIV to her child if she has it first herself.  If the mother has been in a stable sexual relationship with her partner, he has been stable to her in their relationship and neither of them are HIV- infected, then that baby is not going to have HIV.  A lot of people panic and they think 'oh the mother can give HIV to the baby' -- only if the mother's got HIV in the first place.  If the mother does have HIV then she can transmit it to the child.  So if you're in a relationship where one of you is HIV positive and you want to have a baby, then you need to go and get some expert medical advice because there is the risk that the mother will catch HIV if the partner is infected when she becomes pregnant and then there is a risk to the child.  So if you're an aid worker going overseas for the first time and you're planning to start a family,  you may want to think about some of these things before you go overseas.

The danger to the mother might also be at the time of delivery if the equipment in the hospital is not clean.  If she needs a blood transfusion at the time of birth and equipment is  not properly sterilized or checked for HIV, then she could contract HIV at the time of birth.  Then she might be at risk of passing on the HIV to the baby through breast feeding.

So basically, the advice would be if you're going overseas and you're planning to start a family,  you may want to plan for the delivery to happen when you're in your home country  if the medical facilities locally are not good enough. 

Thank you, Sally!  Your information was very thorough and very helpful and really helps me to see how the AIDS virus can be contracted.  It's not quite so easy as just being in the same room with someone as you said earlier.  If you had a final thought you'd like to share with our audience, what would that be?

I think it would be that HIV is largely preventable.  It's not going to happen to you by surprise and let’s care for the people who have HIV.  Let’s give them our love and support.

That's a perfect thought to end our program.  Let us show our love and care to those who have HIV and minister to them in a way that would be an encouragement.