HIV/AIDs

[FAH1223]

In a packed little room at an east London health centre, Mohamud Yasin is telling his story to a dozen Somali women. The group, previously restless, is suddenly hushed and still. Yasin, 27, who fled the warlords of Somalia two years ago, is describing how he went to a GP after he arrived in Britain with what he thought were symptoms of malaria.

He speaks slowly and confidently in his mother tongue, but he swallows now and then. For this is the first time he has told this story in public to members of his own community. Stigma has, until now, kept him silent.

"The doctor sent me to St Mary's hospital for tests," he says. "Three days later the hospital told me I was HIV positive. The relative I was staying with in London was with me. By three that afternoon, he had put all my belongings on the pavement outside his house. He had telephoned everyone I knew to tell them I had Aids and I was dying. I was so shocked by everything and I had no one."

Yasin tells the women he felt suicidal during those dark, early months. The women have never met someone from their own community brave enough to admit to being HIV positive. In Britain, new HIV infection rates are now higher among heterosexuals than homosexuals, and the majority of the new heterosexual infections are within African communities, but stigma and denial within those communities is hampering this latest battle with the virus.

A bad situation is exacerbated by fear among HIV agencies that publicity highlighting African communities as a high risk group could cause a racist backlash, particularly against asylum seekers and refugees. Meanwhile, too many Africans, whether infected in Africa or Britain, are presenting so late with symptoms that they are beyond the help of the antiretrovirals that can remove the automatic death sentence of Aids.

"The communities will not let us in," complains the woman health specialist leading this Somali Aids session. Originally from Uganda, the specialist, employed by the local authority, is fed up with imams who think sex education only encourages promiscuity and who insist that there is no pre-marital sex in their communities. She is frustrated also with communities which deny the Aids threat and - despite the sympathetic response of the women today - generally ostracise those infected. She sighs at the widespread reluctance of men to wear condoms. At the previous week's session, when condoms were produced, one woman stormed out, shouting: "Disgusting". At the end of this session, at least one woman still thinks that Aids is "a punishment from God".

Part of the trouble, according to this health worker, who needs to remain anonymous, is that Somali refugees - unlike Ugandans - saw few cases of Aids back home. Uganda was among the first African countries to see its population ravaged by Aids and among the very few to introduce a successful national campaign of sex education. And in Britain, the Ugandan community has the most well established anti-Aids groups.

Social marginalisation and poor English makes newly arrived Somalis hard to reach. "At first I thought I was the only Somali with HIV," says Yasin, who was encouraged by St Mary's Paddington, west London - his main support when he was rejected by his community - to set up his own Horn of Africa HIV support group two years ago. It now has 60 members and every one of them, according to the founder, has their own story of rejection and stigmatisation. But Yasin is the only one who will talk at public meetings.

Yasin set up the group from home but he now works out of the Globe Centre at Stepney Green, east London, trying to shake up his community's complacency by arguing for sympathy, acceptance and understanding. "People like me are not coming forward because the community does not show support or love and so they are bearing the burden alone," Yasin tells the Somali women. Later, he says that Somalis have kind hearts and he knows they would respond better if they had more information about HIV.

Lisa Power, head of policy at Aids charity the Terrence Higgins Trust, agrees that the huge stigma surrounding the disease in African communities is helping the virus spread. The trust is battling against evangelical churches that advise black people with HIV to give up treatment, as well as the tendency of African refugees to delay HIV testing because of the widespread assumption that a positive test will not help an asylum application. But Power also acknowledges a reluctance among Aids organisations to highlight the high risk in African communities.

"I understand the fear about increasing prejudice, but it is doing no one any favours," says Power, who sees strong parallels with another "denial of the reality" in the 1980s. "Then there was a fear that if gay men were targeted in particular, it would fuel anti-gay prejudice," she says. "It did the gay male community such a disservice. I hear that same view now in relation to African communities."

If all this was not enough, there is an additional difficulty. In Britain, expertise in fighting HIV rests in the gay community, but African men in particular are wary of being associated with anything gay. Graeme Parker, project manager of the Globe, says that only a few years ago the centre was "a place where gay white men waited to die". Now half the Globe's clients are black heterosexuals. Parker admits there are tensions in trying to serve both groups, though centres like the Globe must find a way if they are to secure future funding.

At Terrence Higgins, Power recognises that black men especially are not accepting of gay expertise. But she adds that prejudice works both ways. "Racism doesn't stop just because you are gay," she says.

The Ugandan health worker talks with sympathy about the rejection of her boss, a gay man, by some African communities. "Think how hurt he feels," she says. "He has all that experience and he wants to help." However, she adds that to have maximum impact in the Somali community, Yasin may have to distance himself from the Globe. "The Somali community still sees the Globe as a gay centre and homosexuality as a sin," she says.

Consultation on the government's long-awaited national strategy on sexual Health and HIV ends on December 21. In her submission, Winnie Sseruma, who chairs the African HIV policy network, will ask the government to channel more money for HIV and Aids education through African community groups. "People listen to people who speak a language they understand," she says. She is torn by the question of greater openness about the high risk in African communities. While she believes publicity would help get the message through to the vulnerable, she also fears increased prejudice. "It is tricky," Sseruma says. "I wish I could say there was one answer."

[Gifted]

Miskiin thats so sad :(...atleast he had the courage to tell people...unlike this other somali man that was arrested after infecting five women with the virus-

[FAH1223]

[quote="Gifted"]Miskiin thats so sad :(...atleast he had the courage to tell people...unlike this other somali man that was arrested after infecting five women with the virus-[/quote]

before i get married im getting tested, even though i don't go anywhere near illicit acts

[Gifted]

[quote="FAH1223"][quote="Gifted"]Miskiin thats so sad :(...atleast he had the courage to tell people...unlike this other somali man that was arrested after infecting five women with the virus-[/quote]

before i get married im getting tested, even though i don't go anywhere near illicit acts[/quote]

Ofcourse, you should..and so should the lady you plan to marry....

[*Nobleman*]

allahu ha u saxlo


Brother getting tested before marriage is key inshallah. Some will feel offended, but in todays world it is a must inshallah.

[FAH1223]

[quote="Gifted"][quote="FAH1223"][quote="Gifted"]Miskiin thats so sad :(...atleast he had the courage to tell people...unlike this other somali man that was arrested after infecting five women with the virus-[/quote]

before i get married im getting tested, even though i don't go anywhere near illicit acts[/quote]

Ofcourse, you should..and so should the lady you plan to marry....[/quote]

exactly

btw, pic?

[military-mind]

http://www.positivenation.co.uk/issue10 ... ature3.htm

[Gifted]

loool NO

[razzberry]

[quote="FAH1223"]

before i get married im getting tested, even though i don't go anywhere near illicit acts[/quote]

Good idea.

[Naaima]

[quote="FAH1223"] before i get married im getting tested, even though i don't go anywhere near illicit acts[/quote]

it sounds like a very wise requiremnt to me

[FAH1223]

[quote="Gifted"]loool NO[/quote]

:(

[Gifted]

[quote="FAH1223"][quote="Gifted"]loool NO[/quote]

:([/quote]

BOO HOO :)

[FAH1223]

[quote="Gifted"][quote="FAH1223"][quote="Gifted"]loool NO[/quote]

:([/quote]

BOO HOO :)[/quote]

one day insha allah ^_^

[Algebra]

My mother told me to test my self before heading home, I feel insulted but i found she has a point.

[Basra-]

I sincerely HOPE Aids irradicates half of the worlds population by the end of this century. At least i know it will irradicate half of Africa's population by the end of 2020! (thanks to poverty, african ignorance and the dirt poverty not to afford medicine that would otherwise make western aids infected patient stay alive.)loool