Zaina Ahamed Jama describes life for HIV positive people in Africa's biggest slum
I've been working for Médecins Sans Frontières as an HIV/AIDS counsellor in Nairobi for more than eight years.I had a sister who died of AIDS and it was because of her that I started working in this field. She didn't tell anyone that she was sick until the last minute. When she did finally tell us, I accompanied her to counselling sessions and from then on I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Now I work at the MSF HIV/AIDS clinic, which is in the heart of the huge Kibera slum in Nairobi. I counsel people before and after they take an HIV test, I help patients understand how to take their drugs correctly and I work with the community to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS.
We are trained to separate our work and personal lives, but at times it's very hard. Recently, I had to tell a group of HIV positive children that one of their friends had died. I had never had to do something like that before, and I wouldn't like to go through the experience again. In our culture, talking to children about death isn't really allowed. But we need to prepare HIV-positive children for what might happen. It's emotionally, physically and psychologically draining.
Sometimes when children are tested for HIV, the parent says, 'I can't tell my child the result, so you have to do it.' So I break the news to the child. Kids who test positive have lots of questions: Am I going to die today? How did I get it? Do my mum and dad have it too? When kids are just too young to understand what HIV/AIDS is, you wonder what you are going to do.
We think that about 15% of people in the Kibera slum are living with HIV/AIDS. MSF runs three clinics in the area, which care for more than 1,500 people. About 500 of these patients are at an advanced stage of the disease and so need antiretroviral (ARV) medicines. ARVs significantly prolong their lives and, most importantly, allow them to live positively. These drugs give people hope for their future.
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