HIV: Myth Vs. Reality
“An embrace doesn’t kill, but stigma does.” This is the message that the founder of the non-profit organisation Single Step Ivan Dimov, along with the HIV Program Manager Momchil Baev, sent to the students of AUBG on the second of December at the Delchev Auditorium. Just a day after World AIDS Day, they came to the university to talk about their organisation’s work, to share information on HIV prevention and treatment, and to raise awareness of the biggest problem that both HIV-positive and LGBT people face — stigma.
Single Step is an organisation whose mission is to support, motivate, empower and provide “role models for young LGBT people in the country,” as Dimov said. Some of the services it offers include: an online chat & toll-free hotline in 110+ towns & cities; a network of psychologists in 10 cities; peer groups; and many events and campaigns, such as VentureOUT, CampOUT, and Generation ART. Last year, the organisation started a campaign for prevention and treatment of HIV, which is the main reason why Dimov and Baev came to AUBG.
“HIV is not a sentence anymore,” stated the opening of a video played by the duo. Baev shared that there are many existing treatment options for HIV nowadays, and that the anti-retroviral therapy supresses the virus, preventing it from multiplying and affecting other systems of the body. It helps people living with HIV to have the so-called “undetectable viral load”, which means that even though the virus still exists in the affected person’s body, it cannot spread to other people — including sexual partners and biological children of the HIV-positive person.
“HIV-positive people can now live a long a healthy life,” Baev says, but the diagnosis itself is not the biggest problem these people face. The real issue is the stigma surrounding the prevention, testing, and the treatment of the virus. He shares how the affected people are forced to live in hiding and how mistreated they can be by others. In his opinion, this causes them even more suffering than the disease itself.
Baev says that there are many stereotypes regarding HIV-positive patients. Some of them stem from the way such people are typically portrayed in interviews — in hoodies, faces hidden from the camera, with a changed voice — showing them as something that should be hidden and ashamed of who they are.
Another reason is the lack of education on the topic. He tells the audience of cases where healthcare professionals deny treatment to HIV-positive patients simply due to the misconceptions they have of HIV. “[A]s any other infection, HIV has to be treated with caution,” he says, and specifies that HIV-positive patients should be handled according to the same protocols as patients with other types of serious infections, like tuberculosis e.g.
The truth is that HIV-positive people aren’t more particularly dangerous to others. HIV can only be transmitted through blood and sexual contact. Pools, public bathrooms, visits to the beautician and even casual physical contact with HIV-positive people are not in any way dangerous, contrary to popular belief.
Baev stressed the importance of regular testing. “Better know the truth rather than live in denial,” he said. “We see the infection spreading in every society, in every class of society, in every color, every gender,” he shared, meaning that no one is 100% safe. He advised anyone who has ever had a sexual partner to take the test, even if they have always had protected sex. It’s simple and takes just a few minutes.
What’s even more surprising is the fact that HIV therapy is completely free for Bulgarian and EU citizens in Bulgaria, regardless of their health insurance status, as the official website of the Bulgarian Ministry of Health states.
“We do have all the resources to contain the epidemic,” Baev said. “Together, we can win the battle with the virus and the stigma.”
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Mirela Harizanova is studying Journalism and Mass Communications at the American University in Bulgaria. She went through the free HIV test herself on the day of the presentation, and she was happy with how quick, easy and painless it was.
