JEDDAH, 27 August 2006 — You see despair in their eyes and they often express their desire to die. These are some of Saudi Arabia’s estimated 1,600 new reported cases of HIV-positive Saudi and non-Saudis in the Kingdom for 2005.
If the UN World Health Organization estimate is correct — that for every reported HIV carrier there are nine unreported ones — then the Kingdom could have registered 16,000 new reported and unreported HIV-positive persons in 2005, Al-Madinah Arabic daily reported.
According to the Health Ministry, there are 10,120 total reported HIV cases as of last year. These “cases” are people who are often alienated from society — any society — but especially in highly conservative societies like Saudi Arabia’s where carriers of sexually transmitted infections can carry a heavier stigma,
“If we try to do a simple calculation of nine cases not discovered for each case discovered, we see that the number is big, despite effort by the Health Ministry to increase awareness about this disease,” said Dr. Majdi Al-Tokhi, an infectious disease consultant. “We need more awareness and more transparency.”
Saudi citizens are provided relatively generous health care for the treatment of the infection, but they also comprise a minority of the reported cases: 311 new cases reported last year, according to Dr. Tarek Madani, an adviser to the Health Ministry.
The total number of reported Saudi cases as of 2005 is 2,316, according to Madani. Maysam Tameem, coordinator for the United Nations Development Program in the Kingdom, said 1,289 new AIDS patients were registered in Saudi Arabia last year.
Muhammad H., 37, is one of the reported Saudi cases. He is a resident of Jeddah’s Al-Rawabi neighborhood. He told Al-Madinah that he used to work at the Jeddah Islamic Seaport. He blames alcohol for being the gateway to intravenous drug use that, he says, led to contracting the virus.
“I do not know how and when I was infected,” he said. “I lost my job and I lost my friends and currently I live alone with my parents because they are the only ones on this planet that have not deserted me.”
Again, presuming that for every reported case there are nine unreported ones then there may be a total of at least 23,000 cases of reported and unreported HIV cases.
Samira M., a 35-year-old Saudi mother, said she was married to a man who may have carried the virus for years before secretly receiving treatment. She found out that she was HIV positive two months after her husband succumbed to the disease. She found out only thanks to a blood test during a routine checkup; her husband never told her the truth about his fatal illness.
“I knew that my husband had relationship with other women but I never thought that he would place his family in danger for this forbidden pleasure,” she said. “Many times I talked to him about his relationships with other women but I knew that he did not take me seriously because he thought that I was jealous. I never thought that he would put my one-year-old child and I facing an uncertain future. I am calling on all women to be careful these days because men cannot be trusted.”
If Samira’s husband contracted HIV from having intercourse with women, then he was a very unlucky man: WHO studies in Africa have shown that the chances of a man contracting HIV from intercourse with an HIV-positive woman is as low as 1.3 percent, while it is much higher for women who have sex with HIV-positive men and men who have sex with HIV positive men. Furthermore, a recent WHO report issued this month says that circumcised men may be up to two-thirds less likely to contract HIV through sexual intercourse.
Tameem said that four out of five HIV-positive Arab women contracted the virus through their husbands.
Al-Tokhi said that many HIV carriers can live healthy lives for seven to 10 years without knowing they are carrying the virus, thus increasing the chances of spreading the infection.
“Dealing with AIDS patients as outcasts will only bring negative results,” said Al-Tokhi. “We should deal with them in a positive way and understand their situation. They are not criminals and they should not be treated that way.”
