Care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS

Report on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic – June 2000old, and 70% are unmarried. Most callers have had a high-school or university education.Less than 20% are women. The Hotline is advertised on bulletin boards,trains, metros, buses and in Arabic-language newspapers. Although the project originallyfocused on Greater Cairo, people call in from rural settings and from othercountries where these newspapers are read.Between September 1996 and May 1998, 18 628 calls were made, averaging nearly1000 per month – a number that has surpassed all expectations. The anonymity ofthe Hotline appears to have provided a vital link to information and counselling servicesthat would not otherwise have been accessible. Through the Hotline, people candiscuss issues such as sexuality, condom use, premarital sex and homosexuality,which are rarely addressed in public forums. At the time of its evaluation, this wasthe only hotline run by a government service in the Middle East and given enoughresources to function effectively.The right to information about HIV transmission and prevention has sometimes beendenied to young people on the grounds that they are – or should be – sexually abstinent(the reality of young people’s sexuality is far more complex than this, however –see pages 56-59). In some places, therefore, young people are more vulnerable thantheir elders because they are less likely to know enough about HIV to protect themselves.An international programme of demographic and health surveys permits acomparison of knowledge about HIV among teenagers in several countries. Figure 14shows the proportion of teenagers who do not know how to protect themselvesagainst HIV. Either they have never heard of AIDS or they think nothing can be doneto avoid the virus, or they think it is not inevitable but cannot name a way of avoidingit. In four countries where the adult HIV prevalence rate is over 10%, a fifth or moreof girls in their late teens know too little about the virus to protect themselves. Boysconsistently have more knowledge than girls, and this may be one reason why theyhave lower HIV rates (see pages 9-10 and 48).Lack of education: a growing liabilityIn general, people with more education lead healthier, more productive lives. Thereare several reasons for this association: better-educated people generally havegreater access to information than those who are illiterate or uneducated, and theyare more likely to make well-informed decisions and act on that information. In addition,educated people generally have better jobs and greater access to money andother resources which can help them support healthier lives. These same resourcescan, however, be used to buy alcohol, drugs and sex, to move to urban areas wherebetter jobs are available but HIV infection rates are high, and to otherwise encouragebehaviours that increase the risk of becoming infected. When it comes to protectionagainst HIV, is education really an asset?42