By CLIFFORD FAIPARIK in Honiara
A person living with HIV revealed yesterday that he acquired the virus three years ago in Fiji, while campaigning about the danger of the epidemic.
“I knew about the facts and was warning other people about the consequences but I did not practically apply it to my self and ended up becoming one.”
Pacific AIDS Forum coordinator Temo Sasau, 36, said this during the regional workshop titled “Preparing for change: Development journalism and social responsibility”, in Honiara, Solomon Island.
He said “despite being part of the team in the Fiji HIV task force in 2004, I got trapped with the virus.”
Mr Sasau said that he acquired that disease after his wife left him and his then three-year-old son three-years-ago.
“And it is very hard to be alone when someone is used to going to bed with his wife, ” he said.
“I also needed a woman to take care of my son. And as a result I ended with one without knowing of her HIV status.”
Mr Sasau said when he was dialogised last January 2007, he prayed for his wife to return to take care of him and their son who is now seven -years-old .
“My wife is now with me and my son. Both have been tested negative, ” he said.
Mr Sasau said he had to cope with the shame of stigmatisation despite being an employee of a large international humanitarian Non-Government Organisation (NGO) for 11 years.
The task force was part of their strategy to campaign against the spread of HIV has a good policy about equal employment and participation of people living with HIV.
“But yet they still stigmatised me,” he said.
“So I left last September and joined Tahitian journalist Maire Dupont, who is also the chief executive officer with the Pacific AIDS Forum.
“I am now a HIV ambassador and I am going around the region with other nine of my colleagues to campaign against the spread of the virus,” he said.
Mr Sasau said he now advises everyone to take a HIV test to be sure of their health status .”
Mr Sasau also urged journalists to be responsible when reporting about issues concerning HIV by not using controversial written expression.
Twenty journalists from the South Pacific are attending this workshop.