"If you take your antiretroviral drugs as required, HIV will not prevent you from pursuing your dream,” Alain Murasandonyi, a young Rwandan living with HIV speaks from experience.
Murasandonyi was infected with the virus at birth and he was alone to be affected among seven siblings.
Twenty seven years on, he has got a success story to tell against all odds.
From Year 0, Murasandonyi started to take antiretroviral (ARVs) drugs without skipping a single day.
With all these scars, he went to school on time, and never settled for less, except winning overwhelmingly through classes from pre-school to university.
“I am 27 years old. For all those years, I have been taking ARVs. I am thankful to the government which subsidized them because it could be a lot of money for me to afford, had they not given them on subsidy,” Murasandonyi said.
Speaking at the World AIDS Day celebration in Nyagatare district- Eastern Province, December 1, 2021, Murasandonyi said that he was subject to mockeries of all kinds and his situation is reflective of how the community treats people living with HIV.
“I met several challenges at school; I once made a mistake while telling my teacher my status and how I chose to follow the advice of the doctor. Ever since, I became his only didactic material,” Murasandonyi recalls.
“He would tell my classmates: look, he has health challenges, but he performs better than all of you guys. He is a model in this class.”
He said that instead of drawing a lesson, the classmates would only mock him because after all, “most of them had the fear of other repercussions that follow sexual intercourse, other than HIV infection.”
“Among others, the youth tend to fear pregnancy more than HIV, yet abstinence from sex is a sure strategy that should be used to stop the spread of the pandemic,” says Murasandonyi.
However, as far as he is concerned, Murasandonyi said that people who already contracted the virus should take antiretroviral drugs for the rest of their lives to live a good life and work to achieve their goals.
“Alain[Murasandonyi] serves as a good example to many; hadn’t he chosen to take anti-retroviral drugs on a regular basis, he wouldn’t be still around now,” Minister of Health Daniel Ngamije said during the celebration of Word Aids Day.
“The youth are reminded that HIV fears no one. Those who are infected should take antiretroviral drugs, the sure way to weaken the virus in the body,” Dr. Ngamije further said.
In Rwanda, according to the Ministry of Health reports, over 220,000 people are HIV positive, a prevalence of 3% nationwide.
Experts have warned that the world risks missing the targets to end AIDS by 2030, because of structural inequalities that obstruct proven solutions to HIV prevention and treatment, as well as a prolonged Covid-19 pandemic and a spiraling social and economic crisis.
This year the world AIDS Day was celebrated under the theme "End Inequalities, End AIDS."
The theme highlights the fact that as much as the virus itself, the social stigma attached with it also greatly affects people.
“Forty years since the first AIDS cases were reported, HIV still threatens the world. Today, the world is off track from delivering on the shared commitment to end AIDS by 2030 not because of a lack of knowledge or tools to beat AIDS, but because of structural inequalities that obstruct proven solutions to HIV prevention and treatment,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of World Health Organization (WHO) said.