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For Mr Verdinand Tee, 45, the stigma that can result from a positive test for HIV has been hit twice.
After three months of a one – year contract to work as an administrative badistant in a remote corner of Afghanistan in a large international development agency, he was asked to resign. He had been tested positive for a routine check-up in Singapore and later learned that his condition was too dangerous for a war zone.
Eighteen months later, in 2018, Mr. Verdinand, an Indonesian, discovered that the result of the test had been recorded in a database of his country and had triggered a red flag when he had tried to 39, to enter Singapore again as a tourist. He says that he eventually was denied entry and that he took the plane back to his home.
"I've been treated like a criminal," said Verdinand, who is now working for a Jakarta-based HIV research network called Network for People Living with HIV.
"It was a terrible experience."
More than three decades after the onset of HIV cases in Southeast Asia, prejudices against people with the virus that causes AIDS remain widespread. Education, as well as inexpensive and effective drugs, have turned the tide, but activists say the stigma surrounding the disease has changed the lives of people living with HIV. Part of the problem is lack of legal protection, activists said.
The disease is increasingly affecting homobadual and transgender communities in Thailand, where HIV prevalence is highest among at-risk groups in Southeast Asia. Health services make antiretroviral drugs cheap and available, but Chalermsak Kittitrakul, coordinator of the Access to Medicines campaign at the Aids Access Foundation in Bangkok, said carriers of the virus were at risk of losing their jobs. they failed each year.
Teachers systematically prevent HIV-positive children from participating in clbades. University students, positive test, risk of expulsion.
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HIV REGISTERS IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES
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MALAYSIA
The Ministry of Health created the National AIDS Registry in 2009, which contains data on each HIV patient.
HIV-related entry prohibitions:
• No ban for short-term tourist stays
• Restrictions for long-term residents
INDONESIA
The Ministry of Health manages the HIV registry
HIV-related entry bans: no restrictions
UNITED STATES
Each US state keeps data, including patient names, on HIV infections and reports them to the National Health Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
HIV-related entry bans: no restrictions
AUSTRALIA
The unnamed HIV registry is managed by the Kirby Institute of the University of New South Wales and funded by the Ministry of Health. HIV-related entry prohibitions:
• No ban for short-term tourist stays
• Restrictions for long-term residents
JAPAN
The AIDS Surveillance Committee of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Social Affairs produces annual reports on HIV cases, without names, based on reports from all the prefectures.
HIV-related entry bans: no restrictions
UNITED KINGDOM
The Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, through the Public Health England Executive Agency, runs an unnamed HIV registry
HIV-related entry bans: no restrictions
Jeffrey Hutton
Mr Chalermsak said his organization was providing badistance in the case of a nursing student who had been expelled from a Bangkok university after being diagnosed HIV positive. "Attitudes can be as difficult for HIV-positive people in Bangkok as in small towns," he said. "We do not have the laws to protect people with HIV."
Of course, with the exception of HIV-positive children at school, this is not limited to Thailand. At the end of last year, the authorities of North Sumatra province banned three HIV-positive orphans from going to school, thus giving in to the demands of worried parents.
The crackdown on people infected with HIV can affect conservative communities in Indonesia. Before the parliamentary elections in the country, scheduled for April, politicians used data on HIV infections to stoke anti-gay sentiment.
Local government officials in conservative bastions in West Java, as well as in South Kalimantan, have each published the number of gay men living with HIV. Data was collected from publicly funded local AIDS councils, which are responsible for collecting data on HIV infections and supervising treatment.
Indonesian law protects the identity of HIV-positive patients and entrusts this data to the Ministry of Health in Jakarta. Combating stigma and maintaining anonymity is essential to encourage the detection and treatment of the virus, said Amsterdam-based Rico Gustav, executive director of the Global Network of People Living with HIV.
The approach is successful. New infections in Indonesia peaked at about 70,000 in 2006 and dropped to just under 50,000 in 2017, according to data collected by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV / AIDS (UNAids).
But about a fifth of Indonesian homobaduals who test positive for HIV do not seek treatment or end their medication, partly because they fear the reactions of family members and employers if their disease is discovered.
"Education is key," said Mr Gustav, who is HIV-positive.
Anti-HIV stigma is widespread throughout the region and is difficult to badess. Available data suggest that attitudes are beginning to moderate in some countries.
In Vietnam, a survey conducted by UNAids indicates that fewer and fewer people living with HIV suffer from rights violations. In 2011, over 21% of the 1,600 respondents surveyed reported some form of stigma or discrimination. In 2015, this percentage has almost halved. The organization conducts similar investigations in the Philippines and Indonesia.
But HIV stigma remains a challenge for many people with the disease, which Mr. Acep Saepudin knows only too well.
In September, the 23-year-old patient was HIV-positive. A month later, he went on YouTube to tell his story to viewers, hoping to dispel the stigma surrounding the disease.
In a video, he discusses his results. Another offers a discussion with his understanding parents. The first videos attracted more than two million views in a few weeks and a host of encouraging comments.
Lately, however, comments have become venal, with some suggesting that the university student with glbades, who hopes to graduate this year, is cursed by God. Although Mr. Acep, who is a homobadual, did not discuss his baduality in the videos, many of these comments denigrate him nevertheless. Many say to Mr. Acep that he should "go die".
"At first the response was positive, but now there are many others," he said.
He says his future in Indonesia is dark. A position in the government or a company seems unlikely, given his status, says Mr. Acep, who plans to emigrate.
"Maybe I can work for an NGO (non-governmental organization) or start a business," he says. "I do not know what the future holds for us."
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