Media ‘Heads In The Sand’ Over HIV/AIDS

HOW many more times is the media going to subject us to the image of the AIDS corpse in a Thai museum? Today (July 6) was the second time in a week a Namibian newspaper has published a photograph of the preserved “AIDS victim”.

This time The Namibian gave it front page prominence, while relegating the photo of the group of HIV-positive musicians doing fund raising concerts to page 10 of the same edition. The media’s continued obsession with AIDS in the context of death and horrific sickness discredits and undermines the efforts of the millions of us who, like the HIV-positive musicians, are LIVING with HIV, and responding positively to it.It is little wonder that fellow HIV-positive people are attacked in public, as happened to Koffie Plaatjies in Walvis Bay recently (The Namibian, Friday July 2, p8).Yes, AIDS ultimately kills, but increasingly it is becoming a chronic disease like many others; one that you can deal and live with for a long, long time, while leading a fulfilling and productive life.In case it has slipped your attention, the theme of the International AIDS Conference, in reference to which you used the corpse photograph, is ‘Access to All’.This is a message of hope that calls for everyone, rich and poor, to have access to the many resources – medication included – that today make AIDS a treatable disease.If the Namibian media is not going to cover HIV and AIDS in a balanced way that gives depth, context and understanding to the issue, then please do us all a favour, and don’t cover it at all.The time has come for the media to take its collective head out of the sand, and wake up to the fact that this is no longer 1990 – the world and the response to HIV and AIDS has moved on.It is about time my colleagues and comrades in the media caught up.David Lush HIV-positive WindhoekThe media’s continued obsession with AIDS in the context of death and horrific sickness discredits and undermines the efforts of the millions of us who, like the HIV-positive musicians, are LIVING with HIV, and responding positively to it.It is little wonder that fellow HIV-positive people are attacked in public, as happened to Koffie Plaatjies in Walvis Bay recently (The Namibian, Friday July 2, p8).Yes, AIDS ultimately kills, but increasingly it is becoming a chronic disease like many others; one that you can deal and live with for a long, long time, while leading a fulfilling and productive life.In case it has slipped your attention, the theme of the International AIDS Conference, in reference to which you used the corpse photograph, is ‘Access to All’.This is a message of hope that calls for everyone, rich and poor, to have access to the many resources – medication included – that today make AIDS a treatable disease.If the Namibian media is not going to cover HIV and AIDS in a balanced way that gives depth, context and understanding to the issue, then please do us all a favour, and don’t cover it at all.The time has come for the media to take its collective head out of the sand, and wake up to the fact that this is no longer 1990 – the world and the response to HIV and AIDS has moved on.It is about time my colleagues and comrades in the media caught up.David Lush HIV-positive Windhoek