Inter Press Service - November 30, 2002
Vesna Peric Zimonjic

Under the rule of former president Slobodan Milosevic, AIDS and HIV patients were the problem of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and themselves, not of the government. But from AIDS Day December 1, the new authorities will join the world campaign against AIDS with new vigour.

"The effort will be centred on educating the population about AIDS and eradicating prejudice and discrimination against HIV carriers," the Yugoslav Government Expert Group for AIDS said in a statement. The project will last two years under the local slogan "Include All".

According to available statistics, there are at least 1,500 HIV carriers in Serbia, bigger sister of tiny Montenegro in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Serbia has a population of 7.4 million, while the population of Montenegro is some 627,000. There are no statistics on HIV carriers in Montenegro.

"Our experience shows that the registered number should be multiplied by ten to get the real statistics," says Ljiljana Mihajlovic from Jazas, a leading NGO in prevention of AIDS. "People are scared even to get their blood tested, although it's free. People are afraid to face social consequences, regardless of how AIDS might affect them."

About 75 per cent of HIV carriers live in Belgrade, according to statistics from Jazas. The figures show that 846 out of 1,419 HIV positive patients in Belgrade now have fully developed symptoms of AIDS.

Since 1985, when the first AIDS patient was registered in Belgrade, 717 people had died of AIDS until June 2002.

"According to the criteria of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Serbia ranks among the countries with a low incidence of AIDS," says Viktorija Cucic, a physician who has been treating AIDS cases since the mid-eighties. It is the large number of hidden patients that should worry the authorities," she said.

"The time has come for joint efforts of the government and the NGOs in the field," Serbian Health Minister Gordana Matkovic said at a press conference on AIDS. "The effort will not only be concentrated on treating the disease, but on its prevention."

Experts on AIDS have welcomed the new health bill that provides free treatment for AIDS and HIV patients. The relatively high death rate among the HIV population was a result of shame about the condition, but also of the high cost of therapy until 2000, experts say.

Most HIV virus carriers earlier were drug users infected by contaminated needles, experts say. Over the past six years, however, heterosexual relations have been a source of infection. The number of women infected with HIV is growing rapidly, with a new risk to newborn babies.

"This traditional and conservative society is still burdened with prejudice," says Cucic. "HIV positive and AIDS patients are highly discriminated against. HIV carriers are deprived of their basic human rights, as even doctors are reluctant to help them."

The medical sheets of HIV patients are marked with special red stamps. They usu y lose their jobs once their condition is discovered. HIV positive children cannot attend school.

"It's like living alone in a ghetto," says Ivan Radojicic, who has been living in Belgrade with the HIV virus for more than ten years. "Your life turns into a dark hell."

Things are worse in smaller towns. The family of Mile Radovanovic in Majdanpek in the east of Serbia has been ostracised since July. An incomplete blood test on Radovanovic's wife and their newborn child indicated they were HIV positive. Medical workers spread the word in the town of 30,000. The Radovanovics could not go into the street after that.

A test by the Central Belgrade Laboratory later showed no traces of HIV virus in the samples. "We were devastated then and things do not look much better now," says Radovanovic. "People turn their heads away when they see us," he says. "Only now I don't know if it is because they are scared or because they are ashamed." (END/IPS/EU/HE/VZ/SS/02) .

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