The case story comes from Total Control of the Epidemic project in Butuo County, supported by European Union and HPP Baltic. Butuo County is considered to be China’s alarmingly high HIV infected area, the project aims to cover 1/2 of the population in Butuo County through a 3.5 years campaign by carrying out one-on-one, door-to-door visits to all resident villagers and reaching out to them with health education, mobilization and voluntary home-based counselling and testing.

By Field Officer (Ji Li)

In a village that I often visit is a woman whose husband has been taking drugs for a long time and who is now infected by HIV due to the injections-syringe he has exchanged as drug users. When I visited her, she was reluctant to talk with me and seemed to have lost all hope for the future. She thought she would bear silently what fate had bestowed on her. 

She was so afraid of knowing her HIV status, especially the miserable reality if the test came out positive. The thought of being discriminated, being rejected, even of death coming anytime. As a result, she decided to bury her head in the sand. No matter how hard I worked in introducing to her the mode of transmission of HIV, rapid testing of HIV/AIDS and HIV/AID-preventive measures for HIV infected and their families, she was indifferent to the issue of testing. Throughout this whole process I never gave up and I knew it would take time for her to understand and for her to finally make a decision. I firmly believe in the story of the foolish old man, who removed the mountains. I waited for her patiently, I kept on following up. One day, I knew she was pregnant, and I increased my visits to her home. I patiently explained to her that she could avoid infecting her unborn child with HIV by adopting Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission, a method used by most pregnant women who are infected with HIV. I encouraged her to face the reality bravely for the sake of her unborn child, and told her that there was no way I could help her if she could not accept the test.

Everything comes to him who waits. A few months passed, she finally agreed to the test. Fortunately, the result was negative and she was overjoyed that she was not infected with HIV, the huge burden she had been carrying for many years in her heart fell to the ground with a loud crash and she suddenly felt relaxed with big smile on her face!

Since then, she has gathered confidence and became our passionate to promote and spread information about HIV/AIDS. She uses her experience to encourage those who are hesitating and timid, and who deceive themselves as well as others, just like herself in the past. This is helping a lot in our work.

Field Officer Ji Li Zi Ga is sharing HIV/AIDS Knowledge to the public

This project is funded by EU and HPP Baltic
Content in this article reflects the views of the authors and not necessarily those of the funder.