WHEN THE CONTACT TRACERS CAME

May 18, 2020 News

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– remembering another deadly pandemic

By Michael Jordan

The vehicle with the health workers stopped outside the city home just after 8:30 p.m. A man and a woman got out, went to the gate, and called to the occupants.
A young woman emerged. They asked for the woman’s name. The puzzled woman confirmed that she was the individual who they were looking for and that they were at the right address.
After they had produced documents that confirmed they were indeed from the Health Ministry, the woman allowed then to enter her home.
They made her sit. Hesitantly, they proceeded to tell her the grim news: A friend of hers had tested positive…
This was way back in the 1990s, and the illness that spread terror throughout the world was not the COVID-19 virus, but the Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS.

The first cases of AIDS were reported in Guyana around 1987. Many didn’t worry. After all, it was believed to be a disease that only affected “them people” (gay men).
And indeed, that was how it first appeared, as it decimated many in the gay population.
But then, AIDS began to spread to the heterosexual community.
The Ministry of Health set up its Genitourinary Medical Clinic at the Georgetown Hospital, where persons went for testing and counseling.
They also set up a small building in Hadfield Street for their AIDS Secretariat.
And as the disease continued to spread from community to community, the Health Ministry had one major worry: How would they find individuals who might have been infected by their partners?
To deal with this, the National AIDS Secretariat established a contact-tracing unit.
Persons who had tested positive were urged to reveal their sexual history and identify their partners.
As is the case with the present COCID-19 pandemic, health staffers would then attempt to trace the patient’s contacts.
In the case of persons with HIV, those ‘contacts’ would be their sexual partner or partners.
According to a former Health staffer, a particular vehicle was used so regularly that residents often knew what its presence in their community meant. As with the COVID-19 pandemic, much misinformation abounded about how the virus was spread.

Could you get infected by merely hugging someone? From washing their clothing and linen?
Similarly, there was a morbid fascination about the identity of the infected. Many were ostracized, sometimes even by their families.
I recall interviewing an attractive young woman whose in-laws had put her out of their home after their son died of AIDS and she tested positive.
She was allowed to stay at the Georgetown Hospital, and she spoke of the day when a busload of people visited the hospital “to see the lady with AIDS.”
I also carried a story about an uncle who turned his two small nephews out into the streets after their HIV positive mother died. They also received shelter at the Georgetown Public Hospital. Back then, being HIV positive was tantamount to being a death sentence. Rather than facing the prospect of wasting away, some took their own lives.
One young woman threw herself in front of a vehicle. A man hanged himself near a hospital where his infected girlfriend had died.
Around 2000, the Health Ministry, alarmed at the rising number of cases, allowed the media to visit the wards at the GPHC to see the skeletal men and women there, in an effort to highlight the gravity of the situation.
I recalled speaking to one smiling woman who seemed resigned to her end. I visited her less than a week later and found her bed empty.
Another time, I had a chance encounter with a woman who was HIV positive but living in denial of the fact.
We hugged, and I felt every bone in her body pushing through skin.
I recall taking the HIV test with other colleagues; the apprehension I felt, the elation afterwards when I was told I was in the clear.
Eventually, with the use of Zidovudine (ZDV), also known as azidothymidine (AZT) and other antiretroviral medication now means that being HIV positive is no longer necessarily a death sentence.
According to the National AIDS Programme Secretariat, the number of reported HIV/AIDS cases in Guyana had been reduced to 1% of the total population in 2009–2010, complying with the UNAIDS target of 1.3%.
The media has now been sensitized as to how to treat this topic. We no longer say “HIV patient,” but “people living with HIV.”
By now, many Guyanese have known friends, colleagues and even relatives who had either succumbed from AIDS-related complications or are living with HIV.
And as a new worldwide threat replaces the old, it is quite likely that we may all know someone who has contracted the COVID-19 virus.

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