Putting a face to the AIDS pandemic
Behind each statistic is a real person – and increasingly, that person is an African woman
Marlo Campbell Uptown Magazine Nov. 29, 2007
North America was introduced to AIDS in 1981, when gay men in New York and San Francisco first began getting sick with rare opportunistic infections – and while the disease has left its mark on communities around the world since then, it’s not an exaggeration to say that AIDS has absolutely ravaged the continent of Africa.
The pandemic’s epicenter is in the southern, sub-Saharan region – home to more than two thirds of the world’s total number of people living with HIV. In this area of Africa, AIDS is now the leading cause of death among people age 15-59; in 2007, 76 per cent of all the AIDS-related deaths in the entire world occurred here.
Sub-Saharan African women are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS. Due to anatomical differences and a lack of sexual autonomy that’s perpetuated by entrenched societal and cultural attitudes, they contract the virus at much higher rates than men. In many cases, when the virus strikes, it’s also women – specifically, grandmothers – who are left to pick up the pieces.
Cwengekila Myeni, 64, and Princess Mkhizecan, 69, can attest to this fact, as they’ve seen it with their own eyes.
The two women live in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa – the country with the most HIV infections in the world. Both are retired nurses who now work part-time at the Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust, providing care to those living in the surrounding rural areas.
In mid-October, Myeni and Mkhizecan were brought to Canada by the Stephen Lewis Foundation as ambassadors of their community to help launch a film in Vancouver.
Established in 2003, SLF has raised over $20 million, which it’s used to fund 200 grassroots projects in 14 African nations, including some of the work done at Hillcrest. In March 2006, the organization launched its Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign as a way of building solidarity between African grandmas (affectionately known as gogos) and grandmothers here in Canada. In just over a year, 180 groups have sprung up across the nation, doing what they can to help.
En route west, Myeni and Mkhizecan stopped in Winnipeg to visit with local grandmothers groups (there are now three in town) and reconnect with Ilan Schwartz, a 25-year-old med student at the U of M who volunteered at Hillcrest in 2005 and subsequently founded The Little Travellers Initiative, which supports Hillcrest through the sale of tiny hand-beaded dolls.
Over breakfast at Shwartz’s house, Myeni and Mkhizecan spoke candidly with Uptown about what it’s like to watch a pandemic develop in your own backyard.
“We were there when it started,” Myeni said, referring to the ’80s, when AIDS was still relatively uncommon.
“We would do education on disease,” Mkhizecan said. “Back then, they would simply laugh and say, ‘No, that kind of thing doesn’t happen to us.’”
But things changed dramatically in the ’90s. Now, it’s estimated that as many as 40 per cent of all adults in KwaZulu-Natal are HIV positive.
Now, death is everywhere.
Rampant unemployment means entire families are often supported entirely by gogos – in fact, both Myeni and Mkhizecan, grandmothers themselves, have taken in some of their grandchildren and the children of now-deceased relatives to help out over-burdened family members.
Educated and employed, they are the lucky ones, as many other gogos are struggling to provide for upwards of 15 people on their meagre pension cheques of 700 rand per month, or about $102 CAD.
“Our people – the South Africans, the people where we live – are still living under conditions that do not enable them to earn a living to cover their needs, health needs specifically, during this epidemic, when almost every home has got a sick person in it,” Mkhizecan said.
The physical and emotional costs also take their toll.
“That granny is so tired, her health’s not good, she’s frustrated… She wants to die and let God take care of it,” she said.
“They themselves have lost their children and the children lost their parents – I mean, the mourning doesn’t come to an end, because the children keep reminding them,” Myeni added. “If they want a certain shoe and the granny says ‘I can’t afford it,’ then the child would say, ‘If my mother was still alive…’ That’s sad for them.”
Myeni and Mkhizecan’s words are all too familiar to Ilana Landsberg-Lewis, Stephen Lewis’ daughter and the executive director of SLF.
“There’s no question that this is a tragedy of monumental proportions, and often one does feel apocalyptic when you hear the stories from the projects – of the grieved and bereft children and grandmothers, and the numbers of women, young women, mothers, who have died needlessly over the last 26 years,” she told Uptown from her Toronto office. “I think all of us at the foundation struggle with the horror that a lot of people face on a daily basis.
“At the same time, it’s impossible to be discouraged,” she continued, “partly because one just simply cannot and will not give up on people who are determined themselves to survive and surmount the crisis… There is an extraordinary amount of hope that comes from the courage and resilience and determination of the African women themselves.”
Indeed, with the support of groups such as SLF and the Little Travellers Initiative, things are starting to look up for the Hillcrest AIDS Centre. Antiretroviral drugs are now available and more people are getting tested.
“It’s still getting worse, but people are not dying like they used to,” Myeni said.
The centre has also managed to expand its programming – its income generation projects now provide employment to over 100 women infected/affected with HIV/AIDS, and – poignantly – it’s also set up a small funeral fund, which is used to help gogos buy coffins for their children.
In sub-Saharan Africa, success in the face of AIDS is a relative thing.
“What we are wishing for is to send a message,” Myeni told Uptown.
“Yes, it’s saddening and it’s distressing – but we’re there.”
HIV and AIDs by the numbers
In Manitoba:
- 1,456 people have tested positive for HIV in Manitoba since record keeping began in 1985.
- 83 new cases of HIV were reported in 2006.
- As of Sept. 30, another 60 Manitobans have tested positive in 2007.
- 13 news cases of AIDS were identified last year, bringing the total number of Manitobans diagnosed with AIDS since 1985 (and up until Dec. 31, 2006) to 258.
- 192 Manitobans have died of AIDS.
- Comparing 1985 – 1995 with 1996 – 2006, HIV prevalence in Manitoba women has almost quadrupled: females now represent 25 per cent of all HIV cases.
- In 2006, 24 per cent of Manitobans newly diagnosed with HIV were African, 23 per cent were Aboriginal, and 22 per cent were Caucasian.
In Canada:
- 62,561 cases of HIV have been reported to the Public Health Agency of Canada since 1985 and up until Dec. 31, 2006.
- 2,558 new cases of HIV were reported in 2006.
- Prior to 1997, women accounted for 11.1 per cent of all cases of HIV in Canada. In 2006, they accounted for 27.7 per cent of new cases.
- In 2006, the largest proportion of new HIV cases (39.6 per cent) were in men who have sex with men. Intravenous drug use accounted for 17 per cent of new HIV cases, and heterosexual sex accounted for 11.6 per cent of new HIV cases.
- 30 per cent of Canadians living with HIV are not aware of their infection.
- People can live with HIV for up to 10 years without exhibiting any symptoms.
In the world:
- The most recent global data – released on Nov. 20 by UNAIDS, the United Nations’ organizational response to HIV/AIDS – show a drop in world HIV prevalence rates. These statistical changes are mainly the result of improved methodology, although reductions in India’s prevalence rates have also contributed to the lower global numbers.
- Worldwide, 33.2 million people are now living with HIV.
- 2.5 million people were infected with HIV in 2007 – over 6,800 new infections each day.
- 68 per cent of all people infected with HIV (about 22.5 million people) live in sub-Saharan Africa – 61 per cent of these people are women.
- 2.5 million children age 15 or younger are now living with HIV – 2.2 million of them live in sub-Saharan Africa.
- In 2007, 2.1 million people died of AIDS – 330,000 of them were children.
- On Nov. 26, 2007, the federal government of Canada announced it will be ponying up $105 million for a new healthcare initiative in Africa aimed at reducing mortality rates in mothers and their young children. Partnering with Unicef, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization and others, Canada’s contribution to the Initiative to Save a Million Lives will help train 40,000 health workers and provide treatments for a variety of diseases.
- For more information on HIV testing in Manitoba, call the confidential AIDS/STI info-line at 945-2437 (in Winnipeg) or 1-800-782-2437 (toll-free outside of Winnipeg).
- Nine Circles Community Health Centre, 705 Broadway, offers a free drop-in clinic for HIV tests every Wednesday between 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. Anonymous testing is now available.
Sources: Manitoba Health; the Public Health Agency of Canada; UNAIDS
POSITIVE JOURNEY: Some of the Little Travellers made by the Woza Moya crafters in their container workshop
