Pubdate: Tue, 22 May 2007
Source: New Straits Times (Malaysia)
Copyright: 2007 NST Online
Contact:  http://www.nst.com.my/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3734

GETTING REAL WITH AIDS

MORAL dilemmas are hard to grapple with when they arise as a 
consequence of a scourge as deadly as AIDS. Consider the qualified 
success of the needle and syringe exchange programme introduced last 
year as a means of cutting down the incidence of HIV/AIDS infections 
spreading through the contaminated paraphernalia of drug abuse. This 
was an instance of "realism" taking precedence over the morally 
repugnant notion of helping drug addicts remain addicts, only with 
cleaner equipment, which too many of them took only to exchange among 
themselves as before. Now comes the question of condoms: To promote, 
or not to promote?

A quarter-century after AIDS raised its ugly head, the facts are 
incontrovertible: The single most effective measure against 
infection, other than sexual abstinence or congress only within a 
proper monogamous relationship, is condom use. Yet, many countries, 
other than ours, have wrestled with the dilemma of whether or not to 
encourage prophylactic use among young people by, say, installing 
condom vending machines in school or college lavatories. While 
national administrations dithered in hand-wringing anguish, infection 
rates inexorably climbed.

Today, some 2.3 million children under 15 are infected with HIV 
worldwide, with more than half-a-million infected last year alone. In 
this country, 38 per cent of the more than 73,000 HIV cases are 
between the ages of 13 and 29. Children under 15 and young people 
between 15 and 24 account for half of all new HIV infections, and the 
mother-to-child transmission rate rose from 0.2 per cent in 1991 to 
1.2 per cent in 2005. Yet, too many newly infected people ruefully 
admit to having had the mistaken notion that HIV was a risk faced 
only by intravenous drug users, sex workers and the promiscuous.

Still, the government is loath to openly sanction condom use among 
youth, in view of the thin ice it would have to tread on religious 
sensibilities and cultural sensitivities. This is understandable. But 
why should governments be expected to take charge of everything to do 
with life and death in any given nation? Here in Malaysia, such NGOs 
as the Malaysian AIDS Council (MAC) have done sterling work in 
expanding awareness and disseminating information and assistance to 
HIV/AIDS sufferers and their families, while actively pursuing 
preventive strategies especially among the young.

Let the MAC and other concerned organisations shoulder the task of 
promoting condom use, freeing the higher national authorities to 
uphold the ideals of clean and moral living, while social activism 
takes on the hard realities of modern life.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman