Socio-Economic Impact of HIV and AIDS in Tamil nadu

Chapter 8
Stigma and Discrimination,
Knowledge and Awareness
about HIV and AIDS
8.1 Introduction
HIV is an infection that preys on social,
economic and community vulnerabilities.
From the beginning, the infection has
been accompanied by social responses
of widespread stigma and discrimination.
Because of its association with lifestyle
choices that are considered socially
unacceptable by many, HIV infection is
widely stigmatised. People living with
the virus are discriminated against.
Equally responsible for this attitude is
the lack of proper knowledge among
people about the infection and the many
misconceptions that exist around it.
Stigmatisation and discrimination not
only affect the rights of the people living
with this condition, it discourages them
from disclosing their status, in many
cases, even to their spouses and hence
contributes to others getting infected.
This chapter analyses the stigma and
discrimination faced by the sample
PLWHA in four different settings in
the state of Tamil Nadu, namely their
family, the community in which they
live, their workplace and the healthcare
facilities where they seek treatment.
This chapter also includes the views
and attitude of the general population
about HIV and AIDS, since stigma and
discrimination against PLWHA arise
mostly due to lack of knowledge and
awareness and misconceptions about
the infection. Before discussing the
stigma and discrimination faced by
PLWHA, details about the ways in which
the sample PLWHA discovered their HIV
status and the disclosure of their status
to their family members and others are
presented.
8.2 Discovering HIV status
An HIV infected person would not know
his/her HIV status unless he/she goes in
for a blood test after a prolonged illness
or at the time of donating blood or during
pregnancy. Health counsellors also
recommend the spouses of those who
test HIV-positive to go in for voluntary
testing. Table 8.1 shows that while
nearly 64 percent of the men who had
tested HIV-positive had gone in for
a test after prolonged illness, only 24
percent of women had gone in for testing
after prolonged illness. A number of
women, as high as 64 percent, had
gone in for voluntary testing and a large
percentage of such women had done
so after discovering the HIV status of
their husbands. Around 9 percent of
the women discovered their HIV status
during pregnancy and a few men also
discovered their status when their wives
tested positive during pregnancy.
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