Siphakeme .Mnindwa
Cuthbert Mavheko, Correspondent
ON 1 December 2024, Zimbabwe joined the international community in commemorating World Aids Day.
Every year on this day, people around the world unite in their support of people living with HIV and remember the millions of people around the world who succumbed to HIV and Aids-related complications.
In the early 1980s, health officials were confounded when a new virus- caused disease — later named Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (Aids)-burst out of obscurity among male homosexuals and intravenous drug abusers.
Never before had humanity experienced a sexually transmissible disease that destroys the infected person’s immune system, leaving it powerless against many other infections and diseases.
Despite concerted global efforts to contain the disease, there is still no medical cure for it. Like the influenza virus, HIV is constantly changing itself.
This disturbing aspect of its nature, renders it difficult, nay impossible, for scientists to pin it down or devise a vaccine to annihilate it. Cognisant of the immense monetary rewards that await a man or woman who discovers a cure for HIV and Aids, some people have stepped into the limelight, claiming to have found a cure for the disease.
This truism is buttressed by the following narratives: In 1990, Kenyan scientists stunned the world when they unveiled a new drug — Kemron — which they said could cure HIV and Aids. In 2018, charismatic preacher and Prophetic Healing and Deliverance Ministries founder Walter Magaya announced that he had discovered Aguma, which he claimed was a cure for HIV and ids, cancer and other ailments.
Other drugs that have surfaced since HIV was diagnosed as the causative agent of Aids in 1984, include Borobi, Mocrea and AZT, which was licensed to treat Aids in 1987. However, to date, not a single scientist, herbalist or prophet has been able to prove that his or her medicines or concoctions can cure HIV and Aids.
So far, only anti-retroviral treatment (ART) can control the virus. However, health officials are in agreement that once someone on ART stops taking the treatment, the virus re-emerges.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), in 2023 an estimated 39,9 million people were living with HIV globally; approximately 630 000 people succumbed to HIV related complications and an estimated 1,3 million people acquired HIV.
“HIV continues to be more prevalent among women. Of the more than 1,2 million people living with HIV in Zimbabwe, 750 000 are women.
Young people between 15 and 24 years, who are living with HIV, are 111 192 as at 2023, while those from one day old to 14 years are 75 000,” said Dr Owen Mugurungi, TB and HIV/Aids director in the Ministry of Health and Child Care. Various studies have established that adolescent girls in sub-Saharan Africa are six times more likely to be infected by HIV than boys of the same age.
Studies have also established that most married women get HIV from their husbands. Women have very little control over decisions affecting their own bodies. They are thus unable to compel their husbands to take appropriate measures to prevent the spread of HIV.
It is a sad but undeniable fact that women’s social and economic dependence on their husbands is so complete that they cannot refuse their husbands’ sexual demands, even when they suspect them of having contracted HIV from other sexual partners. Women face many challenges in asking their husbands to wear condoms. Insisting on condom use is impossible because traditionally, women are not expected to do that.
At the same time, refusing to engage in unprotected sex with their own husbands often leads to violence, withdrawal of economic support, accusations of infidelity by the husband, or even divorce and abandonment.
Ms Sibongile Ncube, a 57-year-old widow who lives in Old Magwegwe suburb in Bulawayo, tested positive to HIV in 2005 and is currently on anti-retroviral therapy (ART). She believes she got the virus from her husband, who succumbed to HIV and Aids complications a few years ago.
As is common with most Zimbabwean families, where the husband is the breadwinner, Ms Ncube’s husband lived in Bulawayo, while she and her children lived in the rural areas in Tsholotsho.
Occasionally, she would come to the city to spend a few days with her husband. She said on several occasions, she found him with another woman.
“Being a woman and having someone pay lobola (bride price) for you tends to mortgage your rights. Due to my husband’s promiscuous sexual activities, I tested positive for HIV in 2005.
“However, when I told him about my HIV status he beat me up and threatened to divorce me. That same night, he brought another woman home and slept with her on our matrimonial bed, while I slept on the floor in the same room,” said Ms Ncube, who could not hold back her tears and started sobbing pitifully.
It is no hidden secret that traditionally, men wield a lot of power over women’s sexuality in Zimbabwean society and they (men) have the final voice where issues of sexuality are concerned.
This, no doubt, explains why many married men in the country have “small houses” or girlfriends. This further explains why many indigenous church leaders in the country are married to several wives.
There is a common and appalling myth that a man infected by HIV can be cured by having sexual relations with a virgin. This has increased the toll on young girls. Condoms are a central strategy by the Government and some NGOs in the fight against HIV and Aids.
Some health authorities have even suggested that condoms should be distributed in our schools and tertiary institutions to halt the spread of HIV among students.
The pertinent question to ask is: Do condoms stop infection by HIV? Condoms have gained a measure of success in preventing pregnancy and infection by certain types of sexually transmissible diseases such as gonorrhoea, chlamydia, genital herpes, hepatitis B, syphilis etc. But they (condoms) are reportedly not 100 percent effective in preventing infection by HIV.
Researches conducted in the US established that the HIV germ, which is 1/25th the width of a sperm cell can easily slip through even the smallest gaps in a condom. In light of this, people who engage in sexual debauchery, thinking condoms will protect them actually risk being infected by HIV.
It is a saddening reality to note that despite the fact that the HIV and Aids pandemic remains critical in sub-Saharan Africa, taking a terrific toll on health and lives, sexual promiscuity is still flourishing like flowers in bloom in most African countries, including Zimbabwe.
It is of paramount importance to point out that sex is not a toy to be played with. Almighty God, the Creator of mankind is the one who made the human body and designed that sex should be used for procreation purposes and also as a pleasure bond between a legally married husband and wife in the privacy of their home.
Sex was designed to stimulate romantic attraction and love between spouses and inspire them with the desire to share their lives, successes, failures, problems and help them enjoy the planning of a happy home.
Our benevolent Creator made us in such a wonderful way that we may derive immense joy and pleasure from the palate of delicious food, the sound of beautiful music, the sight of a beautiful park or landscape and the fragrance of beautiful flowers. But perhaps the most intensely pleasurable of all physical joys that God bequeathed humans is that of sexual love between a man and woman joined in holy wedlock.
The key point to note is that marriage is holy and sacred to God. This biblical truism is buttressed by the fact that God gave one of His commandments – the seventh commandment – to protect the honour and sanctity of marriage.
Amid the thunder and lightning, and literal shaking of Mount Sinai, God’s voice thundered the seventh commandment: Thou shalt not commit adultery. (Exodus 20 verse 14).This commandment goes far beyond the mere surface or limited technical meaning of the word “adultery”, meaning sexual intercourse by a married person with someone other than their spouse.
This commandment, which at first glance may seem like a mere legal prohibition of one type of improper sexual activity, actually prohibits any sex that is done outside the marital union.
However, the greatest sense of irony is that in this permissive modern age, God’s instructions in respect of sex — that it should be the sole preserve of married couples — have not only been scoffed at but have been summarily repudiated by an overly permissive, lust-gripped society.
It is essential to understand that today, most highly educated people and men of science rely on the false evolutionary concept as their basic premise and approach to knowledge.
In the vanity of their self-professed scholarly minds, they deny the existence of God, pour scorn on his written word ( the Holy Bible) and view everything through the eyeglasses of evolution.
In their “educated ignorance” they believe that sex and marriage evolved through the reasoning and gradual civilisation of mankind. However, what they don’t seem to realise is that by rejecting the Holy Bible, they are unwittingly throwing away the very key that would have given them an insight into the true origins and purposes of sex and marriage.
There is unanimity of opinion among sober, analytical and discerning researchers that the surest guard against infection by HIV is total abstinence from sex before marriage and sexual faithfulness within marriage.
Abstinence may seem unrealistic, but it is this scribe’s considered opinion that it is certainly the best defence against infection by HIV and various other sexually transmissible diseases.
In wrapping up this discussion, it is pertinent to state that modern society is paying a terrible penalty for the sin of sexual promiscuity. Many homes are made miserable because of extramarital affairs by some husbands and wives.
This has seen an alarming increase in the number of marriages that are ending in divorce courts.
The heart-rending reality is that the increase in divorce cases in the country has seen hordes of children being plunged into a vortex of insecurity, left to face a harsh and cruel future without the love, protection and guidance of both parents.
Indeed, this is a saddening state of affairs.
Cuthbert Mavheko is a freelance journalist and theologian based in Bulawayo. He can be contacted on 0773963448/ 0775522095 or email mavhekoc@gmail.com.
