Southern Treatment Issues
Limited access, growing impatience

"We’ve changed our role from that of ‘patients’ to ‘impatients’," Alberto Nieves of Venezuela told a workshop on influencing government policy. The session was part of a weekend International Community Treatment and Science Workshop Programme.

The activist’s play on words referred to how PLWHAs in his and other Latin American countries have moved from being passive victims of discrimination and government inaction to being outspoken defenders of their human rights. He credits this change to emerging grassroots PLWHA networks and their political tactics such as organising demonstrations.

Pat Monye, project coordinator of Life Continuity Foundation, said PLWHAs in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, hide their condition not only from the community, but also from family and friends. Thus, no grassroots network of activist PLWHAs has emerged to make their case to government.

"If you have AIDS in Nigeria, everyone looks at you as a promiscuous, immoral person.... This has really affected our counselling and prevention programs negatively." The government, she says, has not enacted policies to protect PLWHAs from discrimination or provide widespread treatment and support. Lagos University Teaching Hospital does have combination protease inhibitor therapy available, but "if you don’t have money, you don’t have access to drugs. The situation is very poor."

this story can also be found on page 7 of The Bridge, the onsite print newspaper

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