HIV Talk - CME

Went through a talk about HIV today.. A doctor talked to us about the technicalities of the disease and a lady who runs the HIV patient care centre at TTSH spoke to us about the psychological impact the disease has on a person. And there were all sorts of interesting facts like - you need to drink 3 - 5l of a HIV infected person's saliva before there's a chance that you're infected, so getting HIV from an infected person is not as easy as some might believe. And there's a rapid HIV testing kit, where testing for HIV is as easy as using a home testing-kit for pregnancy.

About the effectiveness about the home-testing kit, which is 99.9% accurate, I found it interesting that.. the professionals are not so concerned about the people taking the test and finding out they are not HIV positive when they actually are (because numbers are so small comparatively).. they are more concerned about people taking the test and thinking that they are positive when they are not.. because the disease has such a stigma and many take it as a pronouncement of a death sentence, they'll rather kill themselves than fight through and live. I can't imagine the kind of trauma that a person goes through.. there's still so little information/advocacy about this, though this can have the potential to become an epidemic in the world today. Research funds are still being poured into medication/cures for cancer or heart problems (basically the rich people's diseases) cos that's where the money is.

Why should we be interested in such a small minority of people suffering from this? Don't they deserve the disease because of their lifestyles or sins?

That's what the people in Jesus' time thought about the lepers.. they were sinful therefore God struck them with the disease.. but what did Jesus do?

"While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" And immediately the leprosy left him." Luke 5:12-13