‘People are misinformed about HIV - AIDS’

It is OK. You can shake hands, share cutlery and hug a person infected with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus). Relax, because you will not get infected too. The route of transmission of the virus is not like that.
Macau residents are not well informed about how the HIV virus is transmitted, president of the Association for Rehabilitation for Drug Abuser’s of Macau (ARTM), Augusto Nogueira, told the Macau Daily Times yesterday. That’s why the local association has today launched a campaign to fight the stigma and discrimination against people with HIV AIDS.
“There is a lack of knowledge about how the virus is transmitted. We can shake hands with a HIV infected person or even share a fork or a spoon. We want to warn the society for that,” he said.
The objective of the campaign is to inform the local community about the virus and help foster a deeper understanding of the disease and respect between people with and those without HIV. According to ARTM, HIV has a stigma attached to it and many people within the community have unanswered questions relating to HIV and for that reason, at this moment discrimination continues to exist.
Augusto Nogueira quoted a survey of young people conducted by the association last year about the routes of transmission of HIV, and the results were not positive at all. “Some said that anal sex is not a means of infection,” he said.
“Some people are misinformed because they refuse to get more information or they just do not care.”
“Fight the Stigma with a Hug” is the topic of this year’s campaign, that will be held in San Ma Lou (near the Macau post office), in Old Taipa, in the Three Lamps district and in Iao Hon neighbourhood, from today at 3 pm.
The opening will be in the Three Lamps area near the roundabout at 3 pm with the presence of Government officials and several associations. Supported by volunteers, ARTM will distribute information on the streets and in four schools. Its goal is to show that “a HIV infected person can be integrated in the society, hugged, respected and loved by all of us.”
Augusto Nogueira said the number of infected people in Macau is still considered low, around 460, and the tendency is to increase at a low and stable pace. “ARTM is struggling to alert drug addicts to not share syringes and is constantly distributing condoms to sex workers,” he added.
Last official figures reported eight HIV infection cases in the fourth quarter of 2009, taking the total number to 17 new cases for the year. Of these 17 patients, two have progressed from HIV status to AIDS, according to the statistics from the Public Health Laboratory of the Health Bureau.
The first case reported in Macau since 1986 of HIV infection caused by bisexual contact occurred last year. It was reported that three out of the eight HIV cases were found in local residents, who got infected through heterosexual contact, homosexual contact and intravenous drug use.
Another two cases occurred in Macau non-residents, with one infected through heterosexual contact and the other through unknown cause.
During the past 23 years, Macau has reported that 44 or 10.3 percent of the HIV positive patients had progressed to AIDS. While 43 of them were adults, one was a child aged under 13.