HIV-Positive People Want Sex and Children

HIV-Positive People Want Sex and Children

Many current HIV programs ignore both the sexual needs of HIV-positive
people and motherhood desires of HIV-positive women, said a group of
positive women during the third Africa Conference on Sexual Health and
Rights, held in Abuja, Nigeria, the week of February 4, reports the global
news agency I nter Press Service (IPS)/AllAfrica.com (allafrica.com, 2/8)

The women said that many initiatives that focus on prevention and
treatment fail to acknowledge the fact that many HIV-positive people lead
full, healthy lives and desire a fulfilling sex life, or want to have children.

“The epidemic has evolved. HIV-infected people are not dying; we are
living and we are having sex,” Beatrice Were, an activist in Uganda for the
Global AIDS Alliance, said in the article.

The women say that often times, health care workers are surprised when
they find out that an HIV-positive person is interested in, or having, sex.
“Health care workers try to force their moral values on other people, but in
reality people will not stop having sex,” said Anne Ntombela, the
International Community of Women Living With HIV/AIDS program director
for South Africa. “They would be better served if they were told how to
have safer sex, rather than not to engage in sex at all.”