Int Conf AIDS 1994 Aug 7-12; 10:49 (abstract no. PS30) Bertozzi SM; Global Programme on AIDS, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.
As discussion about the HIV/AIDS pandemic swings from epidemiology to impact, the vocabulary swings from risk behaviours to orphans and sectors of the economy. The impact on the people-with-HIV/AIDS themselves has too often been skipped as if it were self-evident--perhaps because it is assumed that it falls within a different category, not social or economic but medical. Because of the unique characteristics of this virus, its impact, especially on the individual, is difficult to quantify; incompletely captured by measures such as years of life lost or lost earnings. As HIV spreads, its impact mounts as does the pressure to characterize the impact--but characterize how, for whom and to do what? To mobilize prevention efforts? Or to guide efforts to alleviate impact? If to mobilize employers, governments and donors to increase their prevention efforts, then we should seek out the examples of impact most compelling for advocacy and magnify them. If to alleviate impact, then we need to identify those who bear the greatest burden. Foremost among these will be infected people and their households--not employers or sectors of the economy. And we need to identify their greatest needs, which for many will be water, food and shelter. When the impact can be broadly characterized as an increase in poverty, then intervention should be in the context of broader efforts to alleviate poverty and assistance should be targeted to those in greatest need. Interventions specific to HIV/AIDS should focus on alleviating impact specific to the epidemic, such as: for infected individuals, addressing terminal care and counselling needs (poorly addressed by medical systems oriented toward acute curative care); for households, helping them plan for the future with their person-with-HIV/AIDS to minimize the impact following his/her death; and for all affected people, combating HIV/AIDS-related discrimination, stigmatization and isolation.
Keywords: AEGIS, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, HIV, HIV Infections, HIV Seropositivity, HIV-1, Disease Outbreaks, Poverty, ICA10 940807
PS30
