barely recognisable as human. There were no Congressional bills promising them paid sick leave or help with their medical bills. They were kicked out of their apartments and then died in the guest room of whoever had the space and the guts to care for them. Tens of thousands of people died of AIDS-related complications before our government began to address it. Many, many, many of those people spent their last breaths in the centre of protests in the streets, begging for justice and relief. Their ashes were dumped on the White House lawn. That activism has reverberations today, in the work between public health and community health advocates. That’s a difference, not a similarity.
THE ‘GAY PLAGUE’ It took a year before US President Reagan publicly uttered the word “AIDS”, when over 12,000 Americans had died and the virus had begun to spread swiftly through haemophiliac populations and injection drug users. A government report from August 2016 found that since the start of the AIDS epidemic, nearly 700,000 people have died of AIDS in the US alone. South Africa has the biggest HIV epidemic in the world, with 7.7 million people living with HIV.
To attempt to draw blithe comparisons – Oh! This feels so scary and there are lines at the grocery store and people have to stay away from each other. Hey, does this feel like when HIV happened…? – is an insult to the bravery and sacrifice of the living and the dead.
HIV prevalence among the general population is high at 20.4%. Prevalence is even higher among men who have sex with men, transgender women, sex workers and people who inject drugs.
There is no comparison. Fuck that. Just stop.
In South Africa, 90% of people living with HIV aware of their status in 2018.
Mark S. King is the award-winning writer of My Fabulous Disease. He has been nominated for multiple awards for his coverage of HIV/AIDS issues. This piece originally appeared on My Fabulous Disease and is reposted with permission.
South Africa was the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to fully approve PrEP, which is now being made available to people at high risk of infection.
IMPORTANT NUMBERS
Mag 11
