Where and why?
Mills is an associate professor and Canada Research Chair of Health Sciences at the University of Ottawa.
“Where are all of the men? And nobody seemed to know what the answer was. If all of these women are infected with HIV, surely there are men that are infected as well. Then I was able to look into testing centers, which is where people go and get tested. It’s frequently a different place than where they go and get treatment. There are a lot of men at the testing centers, but yet, you don’t see them at the clinics for antiretroviral care. And so somewhere in between the time of testing and the time of accessing clinical care we’re missing out on these men,” he said.
So, having learned where the men were, the next question Mills faced was why didn’t they go for life saving treatment?
He said, “There’s a lot of stigma about men having done something wrong. So, if a man has been found to be HIV positive, chances are he’s done something he shouldn’t have been doing. So, it’s either that you have a Christian country like Uganda, for example, where they shouldn’t have been having pre-marital sex, or they’ve been visiting sexworkers, or they’ve been having a relationship outside of their marriage. So, a variety of things that create stigma.”
Mills said that the men are often very shamed that they are HIV positive and afraid of what their wives will say. While many men do not go to HIV clinics, they do seek treatment. It’s just that the treatment they use won’t work.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25