SANA'A: Although the government is unwilling to admit that AIDS is a social and health issue that Yemen needs to deal with, many officials are still reluctant to speak of the deadly infectious disease as much stigma is attached to the condition. However, Doctor Abdel-Mageed Kulaib who runs a private hospital in Aden, told Bikyamasr.com that the problem was taking epidemic proportion in the cities and the refugee communities in the southern provinces of Yemen, stressing that most HIV positive patients did not know they carried the virus, taking no precaution when engaging in sexual activities, hence making the problem worse. “Many women refugees contracted the virus through rape and violence in their homeland as often militias use sexual abuse as a weapon against villagers to force them into submission. These women end up pregnant, passing on the virus onto the fetus as they have no access to the required medicine,” he said. The doctor added that over the past years, Yemen, which very traditional and attached to its Islamic values, had witnessed a surge in youth have pre-marital sex, with young women engaging with several partners without thinking of the health consequences. “Young boys and girls often have non-marital intercourse and protection is never used. It's not like they have access to any. They can't simply walk into a pharmacy and ask for condoms, Yemen does not work this way,” he argued. The doctor added, “what we need is an awareness campaign and some workshops as to break down the dialogue barrier. Burying our heads in the sand will not help on that matter. People need to get tested and educated; then we need to set up a national programme and offer free medication, otherwise the problem will only spread.” Several clerics in Aden said they were willing to help if the government decided to start an AIDS campaign and act as moral guardians. “AIDS is a reality we cannot deny. We have two choices, either we shone away those lost souls, or we act responsibly and fight the spread if the disease through good moral and the practice of Islam.” But if several forward-thinking intellectuals see that Yemen needs indeed to get its act together when it comes to AIDS, society might be a much harder beast to tackle.
