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HEALTH-YUGOSLAVIA: Hidden AIDS Begins to Surface
By Vesna Peric Zimonjic
BELGRADE, Nov 30 (IPS) - Serbia is learning to break the taboo on AIDS as it
emerges from earlier years of isolation.
Under the rule of former president Slobodan Milosevic, AIDS and HIV
patients were the problem of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and
themselves, not of the government. But from AIDS Day December 1, the new
authorities will join the world campaign against AIDS with new vigour.
"The effort will be centred on educating the population about AIDS and
eradicating prejudice and discrimination against HIV carriers," the Yugoslav
Government Expert Group for AIDS said in a statement. The project will last
two years under the local slogan "Include All".
According to available statistics, there are at least 1,500 HIV carriers
in Serbia, bigger sister of tiny Montenegro in the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia. Serbia has a population of 7.4 million, while the population of
Montenegro is some 627,000. There are no statistics on HIV carriers in
Montenegro.
"Our experience shows that the registered number should be multiplied by
ten to get the real statistics," says Ljiljana Mihajlovic from Jazas, a
leading NGO in prevention of AIDS. "People are scared even to get their blood
tested, although it's free. People are afraid to face social consequences,
regardless of how AIDS might affect them."
About 75 per cent of HIV carriers live in Belgrade, according to
statistics from Jazas. The figures show that 846 out of 1,419 HIV positive
patients in Belgrade now have fully developed symptoms of AIDS.
Since 1985, when the first AIDS patient was registered in Belgrade, 717
people had died of AIDS until June 2002.
"According to the criteria of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Serbia
ranks among the countries with a low incidence of AIDS," says Viktorija
Cucic, a physician who has been treating AIDS cases since the mid-eighties.
It is the large number of hidden patients that should worry the authorities,"
she said.
"The time has come for joint efforts of the government and all the NGOs in
the field," Serbian Health Minister Gordana Matkovic said at a press
conference on AIDS. "The effort will not only be concentrated on treating the
disease, but on its prevention."
Experts on AIDS have welcomed the new health bill that provides free
treatment for AIDS and HIV patients. The relatively high death rate among the
HIV population was a result of shame about the condition, but also of the
high cost of therapy until 2000, experts say.
Most HIV virus carriers earlier were drug users infected by contaminated
needles, experts say. Over the past six years, however, heterosexual
relations have been a source of infection. The number of women infected with
HIV is growing rapidly, with a new risk to newborn babies.
"This traditional and conservative society is still burdened with
prejudice," says Cucic. "HIV positive and AIDS patients are highly
discriminated against. HIV carriers are deprived of their basic human rights,
as even doctors are reluctant to help them."
The medical sheets of HIV patients are marked with special red stamps.
They usually lose their jobs once their condition is discovered. HIV positive
children cannot attend school.
"It's like living alone in a ghetto," says Ivan Radojicic, who has been
living in Belgrade with the HIV virus for more than ten years. "Your life
turns into a dark hell."
Things are worse in smaller towns. The family of Mile Radovanovic in
Majdanpek in the east of Serbia has been ostracised since July. An incomplete
blood test on Radovanovic's wife and their newborn child indicated they were
HIV positive. Medical workers spread the word in the town of 30,000. The
Radovanovics could not go into the street after that.
A test by the Central Belgrade Laboratory later showed no traces of HIV
virus in the samples. "We were devastated then and things do not look much
better now," says Radovanovic. "People turn their heads away when they see
us," he says. "Only now I don't know if it is because they are scared or
because they are ashamed." (END/2002)
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