Doctor Liliana: Discrimination and hatred are the killers of people living with HIV-AIDS

jpnn.com, JAKARTA – Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is still a frightening specter for some people.

Lack of education and understanding about HIV makes people living with HIV-AIDS (PLWHA) often get discriminatory treatment.

“That’s what makes them afraid to get tested,” said doctor Liliana Handranatan in an HIV-AIDS educational webinar “Avoid the Disease, Not the Person”, to commemorate World AIDS Day which falls on December 1.

This Voluntary Counseling Testing (VICITY) clinic doctor specifically for HIV-AIDS explains that discrimination and hatred from society and family are one of the triggers that can kill someone by HIV-AIDS. So it’s not because of the disease itself.

He also said that this would cause the spread of the HIV virus to continue to expand. HIV is a virus that damages the immune system by infecting and destroying CD4 cells.

“If more and more CD4 cells are destroyed, the body’s immune system will weaken so that it is vulnerable to various diseases,” explained doctor Liliana Handranatan.

HIV infection that is not treated immediately will develop into a serious condition called AIDS. So, AIDS is the final stage of HIV infection.

It can take years to develop if left untreated, depending on each individual condition.

–

Doctor Liliana said that discrimination and hatred from the community and family were one of the triggers that killed people living with HIV-AIDS.

– .