AIDS does not kill, but HIV dissidents do
Optional death
Asya Kazantseva, N+1South African resident Nozifo Bengu died of AIDS in 2006. For several years before that, she refused antiretroviral therapy. Every day she ate garlic and ginger to fight infections; beetroot to improve blood; watermelon to supply vitamins; drank lemon juice to detoxify the body; also took a healing medicine from extracts of various plants, the label of which promised a good life. Expressing condolences after the funeral – Nozifo Bengu was widely known in Africa due to the fact that she openly talked about her illness – a public organization engaged in the distribution of AIDS drugs used the phrase "premature and unnecessary death". I don't know exactly which adjective is more correct to choose for translation here. Superfluous? Not necessary? Optional?
Nozifo Bengu voluntarily refused treatment because she believed state propaganda – and who wouldn't believe in her place. Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa from 1999 to 2008, from the first months of his reign publicly stated that antiviral drugs are toxic, and HIV is not the cause of AIDS at all. Antiretroviral therapy was not banned in the country, but the president curtailed all state programs under which it was provided free of charge – even if the drugs were purchased at the expense of foreign grants. In 2006, 140 thousand (out of 5 million HIV-infected) citizens of South Africa took medications. Harvard Medical School estimates that from 2000 to 2005, Thabo Mbeki's policies led to the premature (and unnecessary) deaths of 330,000 people.
AIDS is still not defeated, HIV infection is still irreversible (except in exceptional cases). But modern antiretroviral therapy radically slows down the development of the disease. While there was no treatment, a person infected with HIV could assume that he would die in ten years. Already in 1996, after the introduction of antiretroviral therapy, it was possible to expect that the average twenty-year-old who had just been infected, received a diagnosis, was under the supervision of doctors and, if necessary, would start taking medications, would live to 56 years. Today, with modern antiretroviral therapy, he will live up to 69 years.
Yes, it's still less than the average life expectancy in developed countries. Research continues. But it is important that the inscription "HIV +" in the test results today is far from a death sentence, but rather unpleasant news. A person has a chronic disease, he now needs to monitor his health and comply with a number of restrictions. A person, however, feels acceptable, can work, can have children (if medical recommendations are followed, the probability of transmission of the virus to a child from an infected mother during pregnancy is less). Can take a mortgage for 30 years, after all (sometimes this is good news).
Against the background of these impressive medical successes, the very fact of the existence of HIV dissidents causes deep amazement (by the way, if you think that they live only in Africa, you are sorely mistaken). But in fact, people who refuse to be treated for HIV because they don't believe in it are simply the most radical part of a fairly substantial array of people who don't know anything about the virus. For example, in a 2008 VTSIOM survey, only 25 percent of people reported that they understood the difference between HIV (i.e., the fact of infection itself) and AIDS (i.e., developed immunodeficiency). 41 percent of respondents believed that there was no difference.
It's terrible how scary it really is. It turns out that if such a person becomes infected, at the first moment he will be absolutely sure that now he will die very, very soon and inevitably? For example, the doctor will quickly explain everything to him, and the infected person himself will start looking for information. But after all, among those to whom he will try to tell news about his state of health, 40 percent will also think at the first moment that he is a walking corpse? And, by the way, only 53 percent of those informed after that will not be afraid to go to lunch with him – the rest are not sure that this way you can not get infected. That is, it does not seem that society treats HIV as an unpleasant chronic disease like diabetes, which, in fact, it has been for many years. Rather, after all, society knows almost nothing and at the same time is very afraid. This probably dramatically reduces the chances of a person with HIV to establish a personal life (although with constant use of condoms, 11 people become infected over 965 person-years of observations). And this increases the risk that a person will succumb to the temptation to hide the infection from a partner. And this increases the risk that the partner will get infected, although he believed that he was not in any danger at all. And all this will lead to the fact that a fresh victim of HIV will fall into despair and grasp, as if by a straw, the stories of wise (and to death – excuse the pun – terrified) comrades in misfortune: that no one has seen HIV, that it does not cause AIDS, that drugs will not help anyway that you need to relax and have fun.
Anyway, "optional death" sounds much better than "mandatory death". Of course, if you do not make an adjustment for the fact that the first will come in 30 years, and the second still in 70.
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18.06.2015