HIV stands for Human Immune Virus. That’s the little virus that gets into your blood that makes you sick. O.k.
AIDS is what you get. It’s Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome and that is what you get as a result of having the virus in your body. O.k.?
[AIDS education talk
by Mrs. Clare A. Kalkwarf D.M.
for factory labourers in iSithebe[
Acquired means that you get it, you get it from somewhere else. Immune is something in your body that is fighting disease. And that in your body that fights disease is the White Blood Cells in your blood.
We have red blood cells and we have white blood cells and the white blood cells fight disease for our body and that is called our immune system. And a deficiency means a lack of; it means you don’t have enough white blood cells to fight disease and a syndrome are the signs or the symptoms of having the sickness and that’s where AIDS comes from. It comes from having the virus in your body.
I put a poster up here with different people on it. Would anybody like to try and guess which one is HIV-positive and which one has AIDS? Ladies, which one do you say has got AIDS? … No one? No one? Really? In Isithebe where we have got 88% AIDS rate, HIV rate? … Nobody? Which one? This one? … Why that man? … He’s going thin. I think, he has got sunglasses and he is cool. I think you made it out, that we can’t tell. You can’t tell by looking at a person whether or not that has HIV. So, let’s not criticise people if they are thin. Let’s not criticise people if they have TB, because that’s not a sign that they have AIDS. It might be, but it’s not a definite fact.
AIDS is like a imvubu. AIDS is like a hippo. All you see is that little piece on top of the water there and the rest of it is hidden away from us, and that is the problem with HIV that we actually don’t see it.
It’s hidden away and we don’t talk about it and that’s why so many of us are positive. We need to talk about it, we need to get that imvubu out of the water, we need to bring him out into the open, we need to talk about HIV/AIDS.
How does the virus kill our white blood cells?
Here we have a white blood cell and he is a big strong guy. He is looking after that man who is not yet HIV-positive. What happens, why does that man get sick when he gets the virus? What happens is this: If a normal germ like a flu germ or a TB germ comes near anyone of us who are not HIV-positive, that white blood cell is going to kill the germ and protect us. But if we are HIV-positive that white blood cell is not really strong enough to protect the man, and so now, if we have no white blood cells we can’t fight disease any more and that’s why people who are HIV-positive so often get TB and STDs.
The problem is then that this poor little man has got absolutely no protection because the white blood cells get less and less and the HI Virus grows in his body
and so that man gets weaker and weaker and weaker.
For people who don’t believe that the HI Virus exists I am going to proof to you now that it does. That’s a photograph made many many many times bigger than normal. That’s an HI Virus that is in the body of people who are positive.
And that’s the thing that kills off your white blood cells.
That’s what it looks like, that’s a photograph of it, a real HI Virus.
It’s not that a condom is absolutely safe. There is no such thing as safe sex!
The only way to be absolutely safe is to say “No, thank you, I don’t want to sleep around!”
Change your way of life! That’s the only safe thing! O.k.? Condoms do help, especially if a man and a wife are both HIV-positive, because you can re-infect yourself. Every time you have sex with somebody, who is HIV-positive, you are putting more HI Virus into your blood. So you are making your life shorter and shorter. I have had couples come to me and say “but it doesn’t matter. We are both positive. It doesn’t matter if we have unprotected sex.” A-ah! Every time you are adding more and more virus to your blood, which means you are killing off more and more white blood cells as the time goes by and it shortens your life so much. What I ask you ladies and gentlemen, and I am so happy the men decided to come today, if you think, that you have been exposed to the HI Virus, go and have a test! People say “why must I have a test? If I am positive I am going to die anyway.” Sure, but you can still live for another twelve to fifteen years!
And so I ask you, please, go and have a test, not so much for your sake, yes for your sake, but for your family’s sake, for your husband, for your wife, children, make sure that you are there for them for as long as possible! And please talk to your husbands and wives about the problems! If you are HIV-positive you must tell your partner, whoever your partner is, please tell them!
This page is part of "An Everlasting Brotherhood" - Video film about the Brotherhood of Blessed Gérard
This page was last updated on Tuesday, 22 April 2008 01:01:04.
