GETTING REAL WITH AIDS

MORAL dilemmas are hard to grapple with when they arise as a
consequence of a scourge as deadly as AIDS. Consider the qualified
success of the needle and syringe exchange programme introduced last
year as a means of cutting down the incidence of HIV/AIDS infections
spreading through the contaminated paraphernalia of drug abuse. This
was an instance of "realism" taking precedence over the morally
repugnant notion of helping drug addicts remain addicts, only with
cleaner equipment, which too many of them took only to exchange among
themselves as before. Now comes the question of condoms: To promote,
or not to promote?

A quarter-century after AIDS raised its ugly head, the facts are
incontrovertible: The single most effective measure against
infection, other than sexual abstinence or congress only within a
proper monogamous relationship, is condom use. Yet, many countries,
other than ours, have wrestled with the dilemma of whether or not to
encourage prophylactic use among young people by, say, installing
condom vending machines in school or college lavatories. While
national administrations dithered in hand-wringing anguish, infection
rates inexorably climbed.

Today, some 2.3 million children under 15 are infected with HIV
worldwide, with more than half-a-million infected last year alone. In
this country, 38 per cent of the more than 73,000 HIV cases are
between the ages of 13 and 29. Children under 15 and young people
between 15 and 24 account for half of all new HIV infections, and the
mother-to-child transmission rate rose from 0.2 per cent in 1991 to
1.2 per cent in 2005. Yet, too many newly infected people ruefully
admit to having had the mistaken notion that HIV was a risk faced
only by intravenous drug users, sex workers and the promiscuous.

Still, the government is loath to openly sanction condom use among
youth, in view of the thin ice it would have to tread on religious
sensibilities and cultural sensitivities. This is understandable. But
why should governments be expected to take charge of everything to do
with life and death in any given nation? Here in Malaysia, such NGOs
as the Malaysian AIDS Council (MAC) have done sterling work in
expanding awareness and disseminating information and assistance to
HIV/AIDS sufferers and their families, while actively pursuing
preventive strategies especially among the young.

Let the MAC and other concerned organisations shoulder the task of
promoting condom use, freeing the higher national authorities to
uphold the ideals of clean and moral living, while social activism
takes on the hard realities of modern life.