Table Of Contents
1. Roles Of PLWHA
2. Nine Canons Of PLWHA
The Acronym (PLWHA) simply means people living with HIV/AIDS. It is both a concept and a registered organization. It is only natural that those who are not well informed should be scared about HIV/AIDS, due to wrong education or misinformation. Once they hear something concerning this disease, they tend to discriminate against those that have been positively diagnosed with HIV/AIDS.
Unknown to them, HIV/AIDS cannot be caught through blood sucking insects such as: mosquitoes, tse-tse flies, sun flies etc. The gastro-intestinal systems of these insects have in-built mechanisms or capabilities to destroy HIV/AIDS viruses; so they cannot transmit HIV/AIDS from person to PERSON. That is why PLWHA can share the same mosquito bites with HIV Zero-negative person without any transmission of the disease.
The disease cannot be socially transmitted except through sexual misconduct. The disease cannot be spread by dinning together, shaking of hand sleeping on the same bed wearing of the same clothes, attending the same school, church or even sitting very closes to the sufferer or one another.
HIV/AIDS is not spread through peeking or ordinary kissing, breathing, sneezing and coughing. It is not spread by bathing together, swimming and drinking from the same cup and not even by rainfall. It is nor an airborne disease or water borne disease. On this basis, PLWHA should not be antagonized or discriminated against.
The federal Ministry of Health Frowns at stigmatizing people living with HIV/AIDS. The law provides for their care. Their medicine in the government-owned hospitals and clinics remain free. They are not to be sacked by their employers, be it private or public work places. They are not to be denied employment so long as they are strong and healthy enough to work and they are not to be socially quarantined or segregated against. They are to be accorded their full rights as eshrunged in the Nigerian Constitution and anyone or organization found contravening these directives would be legally sanctioned.
The united Nations (UN) and World Health Organization (WHO) resolutions tended towards protecting the Human Rights Provision of the HIV/AIDS sero-positive person. This is because the sickness tends to aggravate when the HIV/AIDS patients experience psychological tension due to rejection, demoralization and loneliness. They tend to be invigorated when accepted, interacted with, and encouraged. With such moral and medical assistance they can live normal and healthy lives.
Role Of PLWHA
Owing to the encouragements and care of the Federal Government, PLWHA have voluntarily formed and registered their associations with the aim of encouraging those affected. The associations of people living with HIV/AIDS perform the following roles:
i. It brings people under this condition together to form an interest and pressure group.
ii. It gives an individual a soothing hope that he is not the only one under this condition and this platform provides a new league or avenue of friendship interaction and peering.
iii. Through this association well meaning persons groups, philanthropists and even governments gain easy access, helping, assisting, empowering and re-educating HIV/AIDS patients.
iv. It provides a quick and easy interactive forum between the HIV zero-negative persons and the suspecting public, attention that could have eluded an individual patient is easily made feasible through the groups efforts.
v. It also helps the government and faith based organization in organizing seminars aimed at educating the masses towards developing a positive mind about people living with HIV/AIDs.
However, it is an offence and a contravention of the law to discriminates against PLWHA.
The social stigma placed against them is roundly condemned by law and conscience. They should not be treated with disdain, abandonment rejection and worse still with denials of their fundamental human right. They in turn, should conduct themselves with utmost decorum and conscience. They are to insist on and abide by sero-transmission to zero-negative person as only a HIV-negative public can offer a relevant assistance to them.
Any pretense or act capable of transmitting the virus must be contemplated as willful crime because it amounts to genocide. The people living with HIV/AIDS, as a matter of necessity, should observe the nine canons or rules or principles.
Nine Cannons Of PLWNA
i. Consult and adopt a medical HIV counselor.
ii. Visit the nearest government clinic for free HIV-routine drugs which reduces the HIV crisis but do not cure it. Eating adequate meal or balance diet.
iii. Sleeping well.
iv. Doing regular exercise.
v. Avoiding alcoholic drinks, self mediation, smoking and feats of anger.
vi. Avoiding self-pity.
viii. Use good condoms, if you must have sexual intercourse, otherwise, observe abstinence to help arrest further spread.
viii. Join the association of PLWHA for the benefits the association can provide.
ix. Trusting and believing in God for total healing.