PEOPLE who don’t get themselves tested for STDs and HIV/AIDS are some of the most selfish people on the planet.
I know I’ve ranted about sexual health before, but following the case of 32-year-old Godfrey Zaburoni, dubbed the ‘HIV Acrobat’ by media, has refreshed my rage for people who may claim to be ignorant, but I call them plain selfish.
Circus worker Zaburoni, it has been revealed, has been HIV positive since 1997. He has named 12 women he has slept with, but can’t remember the names and details of the countless others. Police confirmed there could be hundreds, and said from their investigations many have been “very short-term relationships”.
As far as I’m concerned, he should be charged with attempted manslaughter. He could have knowingly infected those women with HIV/AIDS, an infection they could die from. It’s like he has injected a lethal poison into their bodies, all because he wanted to get his rocks off.
Locally, AIDS is a problem that should not be ignored.
With our unfortunately obvious drug problem, I’m sure many people would have at least once seen a syringe lying on a footpath or in a park in Liverpool. Council runs a needle exchange program, and the hospital has drop bins and clean needle vending machines.
I was walking behind a group of heroin users on Memorial Avenue the other day. Being a journalist I can’t help but eavesdrop. “He got the sh**s ‘cause I left me syringes on the stairs again,” one said. The others bantered almost incoherently about where they get their syringes from, what they do with them, and where they don’t dispose of them.
But I want to know what happens if they share them.
I know a man who said he faced death and then came back again after being infected with HIV/AIDS from a previous lover. He led quite a materialistic life driven by money and fast cars before he fell sick, and his brush with death has left him a spiritually reborn being, living in a humble flat and valuing the love of his friends and family beyond glamourous aesthetics as he did before. But now, when he meets new partners, he sits them down and they talk about their sexual health options.
The director of sexual health for Sydney South West Area Health Service, Dr Catherine O’Connor, said about 9,000 people live with the illness in NSW.
“While young people have a reasonable amount of knowledge regarding
HIV, there is still a great deal of misconception about contracting and living
with the infection,” she said.
A Galaxy research poll conducted last year aimed at young people showed that 45 per cent of respondents thought being bitten by a mozzie in an area with a high rate of HIV posed a high risk of contracting the infection, and eight per cent believed that kissing is a high risk activity for HIV infection.
I’ve no idea who the monkeys they polled were, but nevertheless this raises an important point: that there is a fair bit of ignorance out there on the topic.
No, you don’t have to be gay to contract HIV/AIDS. No, nothing other than a condom will protect you. And no, if the bloke or girl you’re thinking of sleeping with refuses to tell you if they have an infection, or if they refuse to be tested at all, you should certainly not sleep with them.
They are being selfish, all for the sake of a good time.
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