Condoms Won't Protect Fans Against Non-Sexual HIV Risk

Since writing about HIV and the World Cup in the last few days, I have looked for news outlets and the like for coverage of non-sexual HIV risks that people visiting or living in South Africa face. I found nothing. A couple of sites mention needle sharing as a potential risk but the tone of the warning suggests that it is aimed at intravenous drug users. There is no mention of the risks of visiting a dentist, a doctor, a nurse, a surgeon, a tattoo artist, a hairdresser or any other non-sexual risks. Can journalists and others trying to squeeze all that they can out of the World Cup not find space for a brief mention of these issues?

The remarkable thing about medical transmission of HIV in African countries is not that it doesn't happen. It's that no investigations have been carried out when medical transmission has clearly occurred or where it may have occurred. Infants, children and even adults who have had no sexual exposure are HIV positive, yet there have been no calls by international health institutions, African governments or HIV donors for investigations. In most African countries, the number of women infected far exceeds the number of men infected. And though women's groups fall over themselves to get their issues heard, they don't seem to be outraged that women seem to comprise the largest number of victims of medically transmitted HIV.

Compare this to a story in Australia. There are fears that thousands of patients at a clinic may have been infected with HIV, hepatitis and other diseases after hygiene standards were found to be seriously deficient. The clinic has been closed while the investigations take place. I don't know of any similar investigation in an African country and I've rarely heard of a hospital or clinic closing merely because patients health and lives may be at risk.

Endoscope and biopsy equipment were found to have been insufficiently sterilized after nine patients became sick. There was also a contaminated anaesthetic involved. These are problems that African hospitals face all the time. They often don't have the equipment to sterilize everything properly, nor even enough trained staff to carry out the work. African hospitals also have the problem of old equipment, shortages of equipment and the need to reuse things that are designed to be disposable. Health workers are not going to do without gloves just because there is a shortage. How many options do they have?

In Australian hospitals, people are far less likely to be infected with HIV, hepatitis or other serious illness. But in African countries, where only the sickest go to hospital and many serious diseases are endemic, the risks are very high. But patients becoming ill after receiving medical treatment in African hospitals is so common that this is unlikely to trigger any kind of investigation, as happened in the Australian instance. And if people die, there are unlikely to be any questions asked. Many people die every day of all sorts of things. Health workers have little enough time to deal with sick people, let alone dead people.

In the UK, children who may have been jabbed with discarded hypodermic needles in a paddling pool are being monitored for HIV and other conditions. The have to wait three months to be sure they have not been infected with HIV, but at least they and their parents were alert to the fact that they may have been contaminated. I have passed through a couple of health facilities in East Africa and seen needles and other sharps in the grass where people walk in rubber sandals and where children play. I wonder if African children running around in bare feet would even notice a pinprick or scratch from a needle.

But I know that the parents of most children here would have no idea that needles and other hospital wastes carry a risk of infection with HIV and other diseases. Some people can tell you that sharing needles and the like carries a risk but most have not been fully warned about the risks associated with medical and cosmetic facilities. Indeed, the official line is that there is only a tiny risk from medical and cosmetic transmission of HIV. Those responsible for the official line, UNAIDS, WHO, CDC and the rest, must be well aware that non-sexual risks are far higher than they admit. But for some reason, they don't want Africans to know that these risks exist and, consequently, how to protect themselves.

And so, as the Western world worries about Westerners going to the World Cup being infected with HIV through some kind of sexual encounter, it's quite amazing that there are no warnings about non-sexual risks. Football supporters don't just like drinking and having sex after matches, they also like fighting, especially when their team loses. And drunk people can be prone to all sorts of accidents. People will end up in accident and emergency wards, dental surgeries and the like. People also may like to get that special football tattoo in South Africa, where it may be cheaper, but also more dangerous.

No doubt, there will be the usual slew of stories after the event about how various efforts and initiatives failed and how things should have been done differently. Journalists will never close the stable door if they can make a story about the bolted horse. So if the media, websites, officials and other sources of information will say nothing about non-sexually transmitted HIV, instead concentrating exclusively on sexual transmission, there will also be stories about how people are let down by health services and how unhygienic tattooists, hairdressers and ear piercers are. But only when it is too late for the victims.

If the Western press is really so worried about the health of Westerners, they should highlight the risks of non-sexually transmitted HIV and other health risks that people receiving medical and cosmetic treatment in South Africa face. They clearly are not worried about the risks that South Africans face and will continue to face after the World Cup has ceased to be front page news. But there is hope that South Africans themselves will one day question the official line, that they have so much sex that this explains why the country has more HIV positive people than any other. South Africans themselves may question the state of the health services that are available to them and ask why they have not been warned about non-sexual HIV risks or how to protect themselves. This is a very good time for them to raise these questions, before the Western press goes back to seeing Africa as a far away place populated by foreigners who have a lot of risky sex.