18 November 2009
It’s 21 years since the first person was diagnosed with HIV in Myanmar (Burma) and the country is now experiencing one of the most serious epidemics in Asia. Here we report on how Tearfund is responding.
The church is supporting people living with HIV materially and spiritually in Myanmar. Photo: Jim Loring/Tearfund
When Mai contracted HIV, members of her community were horrified.
They shunned her and made her an outcast because they thought she must have acted immorally to become infected.
The reality was she had been diagnosed after receiving a blood transfusion following an accident but her village’s reaction exposed misconceptions and prejudices that run deep in Myanmar’s society.
Attitudes only changed when a Tearfund partner, working with the local church, got involved.
By providing information about HIV and confronting ignorance and fear, workers transformed people’s outlook and, importantly, their actions towards Mai.
Food parcels
The local church collected money so she could buy food and she was given a grant to raise pigs and to pay for her children’s school fees.
When she was taken to a hospital specialising in caring for HIV patients, the church sent her food parcels and kept in contact.
The local church in Myanmar is performing a valuable role in getting messages across which can prevent the spread of HIV, using its services as opportunities to raise awareness.
It’s a voice that urgently needs to be heard in Myanmar where every year 25,000 people die from AIDS-related illnesses. An estimated 240,000 adults are living with HIV and only 15 per cent of them are receiving antiretroviral drugs.
Injecting
What began as a problem for injecting drug-users has now spread to all areas of the population, a situation exacerbated by a lack of knowledge about HIV and low government spending on health.
Those who are living with HIV are often unwilling to be open about their status due to the high level of ignorance, fear and disdain in society.
The fear factor is something Tearfund partners are trying to address, confronting ignorance in the church itself and turning it into compassion to meet the physical and spiritual needs of people living with HIV.
Work is being done in Northern Shan involving dozens of churches which together have 30,000 members.
Clinics
As well as tackling attitudes through training, churches are being equipped to offer basic HIV healthcare, prevention advice and counselling to communities.
Church-run clinics are being set up offering help with HIV testing, strategies for preventing parent-to-child transmission, nutritional advice and support if people need to go to hospital.
Home-based care for people affected by HIV is being made available, particularly to orphans, together with grants and training for the development of small businesses.
So far 90 churches have been involved in such work and many more are expected to join them in the months and years ahead.