JEDDAH, 7 December 2007 — When hearing of a person who has been diagnosed with AIDS, one might envision an ensuing divorce and shattered family. People think that “AIDS” is a synonym for “imminent death”.
However, this is not the case with Abu Abdullah, a 46-year old Saudi with AIDS patient who is married to two women and has 11 children.
“Among my family and children, I feel all the happiness and forget that I am sick,” he said. “But deep inside I feel weak and tired from every little effort I make.”
Because of the stigma of the viral infection, Abu Abdullah’s income has plummeted since his diagnosis: From SR6,000 a month to SR1,300, which comes from his modest income as a cab driver and money from the Kingdom’s General Organization for Social Insurance.
Abu Abdullah was the only AIDS patient who agreed to speak to Arab News. Others said they were fed up of speaking to the media, saying they felt it made little difference.
Another AIDS sufferer told Arab News that “nothing has changed” since he spoke to the media several times. He said that he is still suffering job discrimination.
Abu Abdullah used to work at Jeddah’s King Abdul Aziz International Airport. His colleagues eventually discovered the truth behind his repeated absences from work. He says they treated him differently after that and Abu Abdullah felt so heartbroken and depressed that he felt like he needed to resign.
“My weak physical condition was not the only thing that made me leave work,” he said. “Peoples’ looks of pity were to harsh to bear. My friends and colleagues were cautious and changed the way they treated me. They looked at me as a stranger. They all knew that I infected with HIV.”
Abu Abdullah said he contracted the infection after a car accident abroad, in the country where his wife is from (he wouldn’t say which country). The accident left Abu Abdullah with broken ribs and a permanently disabled arm. He said he received a transfusion of blood tainted with the virus.
“After I came back here I started having acute diarrhea... I was sweating so much that I was nearly dehydrated,” he said. “I felt like I was dying.”
He went to King Fahd General Hospital where he did tests.
“When the doctor told me that I had AIDS, the word was not even familiar to my ear and I asked what it means,” he said. “He answered that it is a fatal virus and they should put me in isolation because I am dangerous. I will never forget his words.”
As is standard procedure in these cases, officials verify if the person diagnosed with AIDS is a citizen or an immigrant. If the person diagnosed with AIDS is a foreigner (legal or illegal), he or she is deported. Accompanied by the police, Abu Abdullah was put in an isolation room. When they verified his citizenship, they released him from custody. He was then asked to bring in his women and children to test their blood. Fortunately, nine of the other family members — including a child that was born after contracting the virus — were free from HIV.
Dr. Tarik Madani, who is treating Abu Abdullah, warned his patient to be careful with his women in the future.
Madani, who in addition to being a medical doctor is also a consultant and associate professor of medicine and infectious diseases at the Faculty of Medicine at King Abdul Aziz University and the health minister’s consultant for infectious diseases, said that there are thousands of cases around the world where the mothers have disease and do not transmit them to their babies.
Only 28 percent of newborns catch the disease, according to Madani. The baby gets the disease through the placenta or during delivery when exposed to the mothers’ vaginal fluids.
“If the mother was given the treatment to kill the virus, her babies do not get the disease,” Madani said.
As for general treatment, AIDS patients can take drug treatments that greatly mitigate the effects of the viral infection.
“There are now treatments that exterminate the virus completely but the patients have to take it throughout their lifetimes so that they have normal immunity,” Madani said.
The doctor pointed out that women are 20 times more likely to contract the virus from men than vice versa due to the physiological factors between sexes: A woman is more likely to receive bodily fluids from sexual intercourse than a man.
“Men can get the disease from their wives, but it is rare,” said Madani. “On the other hand, 100 percent of women who have been living with infected husbands for 10 years and more eventually contract the virus.”
The doctor pointed out that AIDS patients could do most jobs without infecting others. AIDS is not transmitted through casual contact. Persons infected with HIV could even serve food. (Hepatitis is far more infectious and common as a life-threatening food-borne infection.)
While some countries ban people with HIV from working in the heath field, Madani says HIV-positive people have as much a right to work as anyone else.
“The Ministry of Health addressed the governmental and private companies and establishments that AIDS patients have the right to have any job as long as they can work,” the doctor said.
He said that these patients have difficult life circumstances not to mention the negative psychological situation and need to work to support themselves and their families.
“These patients could (otherwise) drift into forbidden practices like drugs or prostitution for money,” he said.
AIDS patients from King Saud Hospital recently went to Egypt and attended a workshop there and shared their experiences.
“I saw patients who had the disease since the 1980s and 1990s,” said Abu Abdullah. “I always thought that AIDS patients do not survive more than three to four years after they catch the virus. This gave us a drive to survive in life and have more hope.”
