Posted by By Azoma Chikwe on
It was confusion at Nigerian Community of Women Living with HIV in Navy Town, Lagos when a young girl in her 20s who attends a Pentecostal Church in Lagos and is born-again since 2000 tested HIV positive.
It was confusion at Nigerian Community of Women Living with HIV in Navy Town, Lagos when a young girl in her 20s who attends a Pentecostal Church in Lagos and is born-again since 2000 tested HIV positive. According to the girl, since she got born-again, she has abstained completely from sex, being a spinster, only to test HIV positive years after.
Looking back at her past before she got born-again, Ifeanyi admitted that she had a couple of relationships, but since she tested HIV positive, she had checked with her two former boyfriends, they are all HIV negative, one is even happily married now. This had left her even more confused.
Now she suspects that her late aunty whom she shared virtually everything with, including undies, but who later died of unknown sickness with her husband must have given her the virus. She believes that the strange sickness that killed her aunty and the husband is AIDS, stating that her aunty manifested all the symptoms of HIV/AIDS before she died.
Speaking to Daily Sun on Ifeanyi's case, the Executive Director of Nigerian Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS, Ms Yinka Jegede - Ekpe said the girl's case simply re-emphasizes the fact that HIV is not contracted through sex alone. She, therefore, advised that people living with HIV should not be branded promiscuous because the virus is not only contracted through sex.
Asked how she contracted the virus, Ifeanyi said: "I tested HIV positive in 2003. I was born again in 2000, I don't even know the difference between HIV/AIDS that time. Since I got born-again in 2000, I have been a dedicated Christian. But sometime in 2003 I fell sick, I was admitted in the hospital for two weeks, and I was told it was typhoid fever."
"After I left the hospital, I was feeling weak all the time, that was my major problem then. After three months, my younger sister came to see me, she is married and she said her husband said she should bring me. When I got to their house, they took me to a hospital, where several tests were done on me, including HIV test. Her husband showed me the results of the tests, except that of the HIV test. They bought some blood tonic for me and said I should go home and take care of myself."
"After that, my younger sister went to my dad and told him that I am HIV positive. And my daddy spread the news over the whole village, it was very painful, she did not tell me, she went to tell my dad and my daddy told the whole village."
"I thought all hope was lost, but my church encouraged me and told me to have faith, that there was nothing God cannot do. And since then, I have been living positively. Three months later, I started taking antiretrovirals which I get from Military Hospital, Yaba."
"When I tested positive to HIV, I was not dating, I abstained for three years, from 2000 to June 2003 when I was diagnosed HIV positive, I abstained from sex. And that was because I got born-again on December 31, 1999."
Describing the type of life she lived before she got born-again, she said: "Before I got born again, I had a boyfriend. Now he is married. The type of life he lived was not commendable, I was into business, he duped me, he was not faithful to me, so I decided to leave him. When he begged me to come back, I refused because I did not want to marry someone who was not faithful to me. The boy is fine, I used to see him, he is okay. I didn't get the virus from him."
"My daddy was not interested in giving us sound education and that affected us. Maybe when I was still in school, at Egbaki Grammar School in Delta State, was when I got the virus."
"I had a boyfriend in Egbaki Grammar School. What surprises me is that he is HIV negative. So, I am confused, I can't really say that this is where I got the virus. I don't really know."
"But there is one circumstance I suspect strongly. When I finished my secondary school, I came to Lagos to live with my aunty and she was very sick, that was in 1996. She had misunderstanding with her husband, which was later resolved and she took in. After six months she had miscarriage and became sick. She was sick for over a year, before she died. I suspect strongly it was the virus that killed her because every symptom of HIV showed in her body except rashes. She was stooling, coughing and lost so much weight, almost like a skeleton before she died. After two years, the husband also died the same way."
"And this is a sister that I did everything in common with. Virtually everything. She took me even more than a blood sister, like a daughter. We shared everything together, everything. She can put down her undies, and I will wear it, to tell you the extent of our closeness, before she died. So, I don't really know if she was the one that infected me. From my experience as HIV/AIDS counsellor, I know that it was AIDS that killed her and her husband too. We share undies, we did everything in common."
"All my former boyfriends are HIV negative. Well, the doctor said I could have been infected through a sharp object. Because I asked the doctor how come? For three years now I have abstained from sex, there was nothing like that. Even some of my church members still don't believe that I am HIV positive uptill now."
"The first time I did my CD4 count, it was 20, but the last time I checked my CD4, it was 620, it is not up to a year that I was placed on antiretrovirals and my virus is undetected. I am HIV positive, but the virus has got to its lowest level. That is the HIV test cannot detect the virus in my blood, but I know I am HIV positive. And if I should stop the antiretrovirals, I should be doing more harm to myself than good."
Speaking on her plans of getting married, she said: "I am believing God for my husband, he may be positive or he may be negative, if I marry a positive person, I wouldn't want to re-infect myself because my test reads undetected, so I will like to know his viral load and the stage of his virus, because there are various stages of the virus. And if I am married to a negative person, I will try as much as possible to protect him, and I would want him to know everything about me. If you are positive, you can still marry somebody that is negative."
"If I marry a man that is HIV negative, we can have children. We can do sperm-wash. Because he cannot make love to me unprotected, that is where sacrifice comes in. That is where he has to make sacrifice for me. Because I will never allow him to go into me without protecting himself. So, we will go for sperm-wash, and our doctor will be there to advise us."