Bloodborne HIV: Don't Get Stuck!

An article in the Arusha Times claims that public sector employees may be more vulnerable to HIV. This is not too surprising because HIV prevalence is higher among employed than unemployed people in Tanzania and a lot of other higher prevalence countries. Prevalence is also higher among urban dwelling people, wealthier people, and various other groups.

But the question is, why is their risk higher, often much higher? One of those cited in the article is said to have urged “married couples to go for tests on their HIV status without any suspicion on who among the two was to blame in case he or she tested positive”. Maybe neither are ‘to blame’. Many HIV positive people are married to or living with only one, HIV negative person. They don’t know how they were infected. However, the HIV industry insists that they were almost definitely infected through unsafe sex. Perhaps public sector employees face non-sexual risks, such as those from unsafe healthcare, traditional or cosmetic practices?

[There have been a number of unexpected infections in infants and young adults in Tanzania in the 1980s and 1990s and these may have been cases of healthcare associated HIV, but they have yet to be investigated.]