It is very true that there's beauty in diversity, and it's one of the things that make living very interesting, especially when it comes to our different beliefs and cultures. We've also lived, or are living, to respect people's opinions very well, but there are things that are extremely done or exaggerated that appear overly significant in some people's eyes, while there are also things that are simply done that ought to appear very big in other people's sight. This happens to different regions of the world.
Over time, due to a high level of sensitisation, I've come to know that HIV/AIDS is not a death sentence as it was in the days when it newly came out, and most importantly, HIV/AIDS is not only contracted through sex. I have noticed that the stigmatisation that comes with HIV/AIDS is very high in Africa, and the fact that we quickly believe that someone got the virus through sex is too alarming. For God's sake, HIV/AIDS can be contracted from a barbing salon when a clipper used on an infected person is not properly sterilised and is then used on another person. This is a very common flow of HIV/AIDS transmission because, even till today, a lot of people do not have their personal clippers and instead make use of the ones at the barbing salon, and anything can just happen in the process.
The people of Africa do not take the matter of HIV very likely. To them, it's not just a sickness, it's a SHAME and this is very bad. HIV/AIDS is just like any other disease.
Some months ago, there was someone in our street who died due to the virus. The man wasn't on proper medication even when he knew his health condition. So when he died, all the speculations as to how he got infected were centred on sex, and it was so annoying. The women in the street castigated the whole thing, and the stigmatisation was excessively done to the extent that they even pushed it onto the relatives of the man for the possibility of them being infected also.
In other advanced countries, it's not like this. In fact, as it stands now, HIV/AIDS is not rated as deadly as it was before; there are more deadly diseases such as cancer. We need to do better to stop this stigmatisation before it cuts short more lives, as it's currently doing.
Thanks!
