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HIV/AIDS is greatly feeding fat on our hostile attitude towards one another.It is feeding on our lack of true love for one another.HIV/AIDS has affected the way we love,the way we care,the way we treat one another;and that is the basis for all forms of AIDS-related stigmatization and discrimination we see around us.
Canon Gideon Byamu-gisha,a renowned HIV-positive cleric,may have been pontificating when he made a profound statement in what can I do?'-a moving documentary on his experience as a cleric living with the HIV virus and coping with the stigma .But the Ugandan AIDS activist was not far from reality.

Indeed,the advent of HIV/AIDS has greatly affected a lot of things about us.Beneath the faade that our well crafted resumes,made up faces,designer clothes and accessories,try to cover is an incomprehensible reality that HIV/AIDS epidemic is unmasking.This epidemic is fast redefining everyday terms like educated', enlightened', and the likes. Indeed, AIDS has redefined what love really is.
On February 5 2001,a High court in Lagos Nigeria prevented a woman from testifying in court.The woman, a nurse was challenging the unlawful termination of her appointment for testing positive to HIV.The court,in the previous sitting warned the woman's counsel not to bring her to court because,according to the judge, "what assurance do we have that if she is brought to court,lawyers and litigants are safe;after all,life has no duplicate." The Judge then asked the woman's counsel to come with a doctor's report indicating that she cannot infect people by merely standing in the court room.Everyone in the courtroom bursted into laughter for the Judge's annoying and surprising conclusion.
In 2004,an undergraduate journalist was sent out of the Nigerian Institute of Journalism by the Provost because he was not only HIV positive but he could not keep his mouth shut about his HIV positive status.His admission was withdrawn.
The AIDS epidemic is also affecting industries' human resources policies in most African countries and it is defining what we do when hiring new staffs.A leading insurance company in West Africa sacked a senior manager who was brought in from another insurance company.He was hired and given an offer he could not resist.Though he was offered lots of goodies but he was made to undergo a compulsory HIV test as well.The test turned out bad for the man and the insurance firm wasted no time in sackinh him and sending him back to ground zero.With few HIV activists to turn to,the man is about to begin the greatest battle of his life.
A catalogue of reported incidents of AIDS-related stigmatization in most third world countries is presenting a scary reality-an ugly reality informed by prejudice,unfounded phobia,shallow-mindedness and crass ignorance.And to say that these untoward acts are causing a tide that makes nonsense of almost two decades of AIDS response is putting it mildly.
It is time for the stakeholders in the World Health sector to give massive information against discrination against HIV positive people around the world,especially in the third world countries of Africa as they have been doing in educating the world about preventive measures against HIV/AIDS diseases.
Laws should be made by governments to protect those who are discriminated against and those who go against the laws should be severely punished. Some welfare packages should be given to those who lose their jobs as a result of discrimination against them because of their HIV status

Learn more about this author, Tunde Adelakun.
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