An AIDS patient shows her anti-retroviral (ARV) medication at the Tapologo hospice in Rustenburg, South Africa, June 14, 2006. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko (South Africa)
From stigma to celebrity: fighting AIDS in NamibiaNamibia may have been ravaged by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, but a government programme distributing anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs is now making solid progress. Desiewaar Heita meets a woman who became a household name in the country after her life was saved by the treatment.
Karin Sheetekala knows all about the stigma of HIV/AIDS.
Now a widely recognised celebrity in her native Namibia, Sheetekala has been a public voice speaking out against discrimination ever since she volunteered to feature in a documentary on the virus made last year by the Namibia Broadcasting Corporation (NBC).
And she speaks from bitter personal experience.
When she was first diagnosed as HIV-positive, her husband threw her out of their house. When he too fell ill with the virus, she went home only to find him sleeping in the living room. His family had taken over the house and refused to share food with either of them.
"We had to live off neighbours and friends," says Sheetekala, an attractive, slender woman in her late 30s. "People in the house locked the food cabinets. It was as though we were already dead," she says.
A public voiceWith a population of 2 million people, Namibia has a prevalence rate of 21.3 percent, up slightly from 19.8 recorded in 2004, ranking it among the worst affected countries in the world.
Following her appearance in the documentary, Sheetekala now features regularly in the country's newspapers with a message not only of awareness, but also of hope.
"HIV/AIDS is not the end of the world," she says.
Since 2005, she, her husband and one of their children have been receiving anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment as part of a government initiative that now offers the drugs in at least one public sector hospital in each of the country's 13 regions.
"The three of us, who are all HIV-positive support each other. We take our ARV together every day. And our other children have been very supportive," she says.
According to the Ministry of Health and Social Services, just over 26,000 people were receiving ARV treatment in September 2006, against a target of 30,000 people by early 2007. The country has achieved 50 percent of its national treatment needs and has been recognised by the United Nations as a success story in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Despite the progress, however, Sheetekala believes that persistent ignorance of HIV in the health system nearly killed her.
She started getting "very sick" after the birth of her last child. "I was so ill that I said 'this is it'. My hair fell out. My eye pupils turned grey. I had pimples all over my face. I had diarrhoea and was very weak, I could not walk," she says. Her child was also very ill.
"But nobody could tell me the sickness I had," she says. The nurses at the state hospitals sent her from one general practitioner to another, all of whom conducted a string of blood, stool and urine tests. Remarkably, no one ever checked for HIV.
Eventually she began asking for an HIV test herself, and was eventually diagnosed - after the third request.
Finding new lifeAside from the ARV treatment she is now receiving, Sheetekala, her husband and her child are also supported by the AIDS Care Trust, a local non-governmental organisation (NGO) which gives counselling and other help to people with HIV/AIDS.
"The counsellors are very helpful. I talk to them about everything. When I feel down because of the mistreatment from my in-laws, or when I have run out of food, I tell them."
She has also started working for the NGO.
"I could not sit around doing nothing. So I started volunteering, helping around here with whatever needs to be done. Realising how fit I am, my colleagues here suggested I work in the kiosk. It is not a lot of money but now I can buy food for the three of us," she says.
The message of hope that Sheetekala spreads in the media is that her immediate family is now strong and happy. Although their other relatives eventually kicked them out of their house completely, and most of their things have not been returned, she says she does not really care.
"I am now in the hands of the doctor, and God. With ARVs the doctors are helping me to prolong my days ???????????????????????????????? and with God's help, I will reach old age."
Desiewaar Heita is a journalist with the Namibia Economist. This article is part of a series commissioned by AlertNet from journalists who have taken Reuters Foundation AIDS reporting courses. Any opinions are those of the author and not of Reuters.Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.