By Ann Mikia
Nairobi, Kenya: According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around six in ten new HIV infections occur in discordant couples. As we commemorated the 37th World AIDS Day, the local theme was “It’s a race against time” focusing on men and boys.
Discordant couples refer to sexual partners living together where one partner is HIV-positive and the other is HIV-negative. Such couples have a high risk of HIV transmission.
Why men and boys?
At a recent media science Café, Ms. Jenny Gakii, a programme officer with the National Syndemic Disease Control Council mentioned some of the reasons why men find themselves where they are. From socialization, they are supposed to suppress how they feel and appear strong. This she said leads to negative health outcomes. According to the Ministry of Health data in 2023, 1.3 million Kenyans live with HIV with men accounting for 487,710 which is 35 of every 100 of all infected people.
Discordant Couples of Kenya (DISCOK) was started in 2008 and has a membership of about 2000 discordant couples. Churchill Almasa is the director of the Discordant Couples. He says men front all manner of reasons for not seeking treatment. “Many who work in the informal settlement live from hand to mouth meaning hours taken to go to the hospital may mean the family won’t eat that day.” Some men don’t want to be viewed as weak and will avoid hospitals at whatever cost. “They dislike the idea of being in a queue with women and children making noise in the hospitals and would rather self-prescribe for imagined diseases,” he added.
Fifty-two-year-old George Lepokoiyot (not his real name), a member of DISCOK, learned about his HIV status in 2004. He says men are a unique species. “You see a man will rush to the garage to get his car fixed whenever he notices a problem but when it comes to his health, it’s a different ball game. He is taken to the hospital when he is completely down.” Lepokoiyot attributes this to fear and the cultural belief that men die hard. He however argues that empowering men helps them appreciate the benefit of taking good care of their health like women do.
He has a number of friends who prefer visiting the shops and asking for a pain killer called “mara moja” and when it doesn’t seem to work they will go to the chemist and say they have symptoms similar to those of malaria and therefore buy medication to treat malaria. “The trend continues until the man is very down and if he is a married man, the wife may call the man’s relatives to report that he is sick and is refusing to be taken to the hospital, and only then would the man agree to see a doctor and get a proper diagnosis of what is ailing him and sometimes it’s too late,” he says.
George has a personal experience that is common with many men. He felt unwell but would not go to see a doctor. When his wife got pregnant, she requested him to take her to the clinic to take the tests together but he dismissed the request saying he would be comfortable with the wife’s results as they would also be his results. After some time when he agreed to go for counseling and testing with his wife, the tests were different and it took him time to get convinced about his status. “I felt like a bomb had gone off splitting my body into pieces. I had lived with my wife for ten years. How could this be the case? I chose to seek a second and even a third opinion but the results remained the same,” he says.
He didn’t start taking Anti-Retroviral (ARV) drugs that stop the virus from multiplying in the body immediately. As he gained more information on HIV, he came across a group for discordant couples and this made him find some safe space where he could discuss personal information with those who understood him. He enrolled for ARVs and accessed them easily without any stigma or fear of being spotted by friends who would have shunned him. George says it was in that group of discordant couples that he discovered his self-love which made him start taking good care of his health. “Even if I had nothing in my pocket, the group members took me in and contributed to ensuring I ate and took my medication. I had only noticed that kind of love among the Muslims because they really support each other,” he said.
According to the Ministry of Health, Kenya has a vision of ending HIV by 2030. In line with the theme this year, more men should be reached to stop unnecessary deaths. Last year alone over 23 men died each day from AIDS-related complications. Losing over 8000 men to a condition that is manageable and or can be prevented with so many available products still poses a challenge to the Ministry of Health and the country at large.
Ms. Gakii said there is still a great need to create awareness of HIV and AIDS. Churchill Almasa who is the director of DISCOK says, “Counselling services happen throughout to keep couples together because dealing with discordant results is not easy. We also offer our members prevention commodities and referrals to hospitals for specialized services for those in need to see specialists.” The organization offers support services for members who find a safe space to discuss their personal issues.
Brian Muriu is a member of DISCOK though he is not HIV positive. Having very close relatives in a discordant relationship, he chose to join DISCOK and be of assistance to members who may have problems of, for instance, picking ARV’s or even Tuberculosis. “Stigma towards HIV is still high and some patients may not want to be spotted picking the life-saving ARV’s so I pick and deliver such medication for patients and follow up on TB patients to ensure they adhere to medication,” he told this writer.
Thirty-one-year-old Teddy Mwaura (not his real name) works with DISCOK because his parents are in a discordant relationship. Both parents consumed alcohol but have since stopped thanks to counselling services by DISCOK. His message to men is “one’s health is very important so they need to create time and not wait until it’s too late.”
annmikia@gmail.com
