Advocate wants harsh punishment for HIV revenge

Having lived with HIV for almost 20 years, Jamaican advocate Alicia Anderson is speaking out against people who deliberately put others at risk, insisting that the virus should never become a tool for revenge.
Anderson, who was diagnosed in 2007 at age 24, says she has encountered people who know they are HIV-positive but deliberately conceal their status from sexual partners while having unprotected sex.
Speaking with THE STAR yesterday, she said such behaviour was particularly troubling at a time when Jamaica is working to reduce new HIV infections and eliminate the stigma surrounding the virus.
“I have interacted with persons who know their status and are not willing to tell the person they are sleeping with and they are going unprotected,” Anderson said.
She also claimed that some people misrepresent their treatment status, telling partners that their viral load is undetectable when that is not the case.
Anderson recalled that, shortly after learning that she was HIV-positive, she encountered people who openly spoke about deliberately passing on the virus to others.
She remembered one attitude in particular: people who had contracted HIV from someone, such as a truck driver, saying they intended to “give it back” by infecting other truck drivers.
For Anderson, however, anger and stigma cannot justify knowingly exposing another person to HIV. 
“There are times when persons refuse to share their status because of the stigma and discrimination,” she said. “But, for the most part, a lot of them are bitter and angry and just decide to go on a path of revenge.”
Anderson said she has also heard of partners discovering a person’s HIV status by accident, including after finding medication hidden in the home. In one case, she said, a person found medication while cleaning and only realised what it was after searching for information about the drugs.
“That is very deceiving,” Anderson said.
Her own experience, she added, has shaped her determination to speak out. Anderson said she contracted HIV from one of three men she had been involved with, all of whom, she claimed, told her they were HIV-negative after she disclosed her status to them.
Despite her anger over deliberate transmission, Anderson stressed that people living with HIV should not be treated as threats.
“I feel really sad about this because the HIV virus can be controlled,” she said, adding that having HIV does not mean she wants others to become infected.
She is calling for stronger measures against people who knowingly and deliberately expose others to the virus.
Under the Offences Against the Person Act, a person can be prosecuted for ‘intentional’ or ‘reckless’ transmission of sexual infections, including HIV. In 2018, a Joint Select Committee of Parliament recommended that amendments be made to the act, to make it a criminal offence for individuals who willfully and knowingly transmit sexually transmitted infections. However, the law is yet to be amended.
An estimated 28,000 people are living with HIV in Jamaica, according to the Ministry of Health and Wellness. 
Nationally, the HIV treatment cascade shows that 90 per cent of people living with HIV knew their status, 75 per cent were linked to care, 62 per cent were retained in care, 58 per cent remained on antiretroviral treatment (ARV), and 46 per cent of those on ARVs achieved viral suppression.
For Anderson, however, the statistics tell only part of the story. She said stigma, secrecy, anger and, in some cases, a desire for revenge, can complicate efforts to prevent transmission and ensure people are tested and treated.
“Believe it or not, there are perpetrators who travel from parish to parish to spread the virus, and that is really sickening,” Anderson said.
Against this backdrop, Anderson believes stronger legal measures are needed to deter people who knowingly put others at risk.
“I do hope that very soon there will be local laws that can be applied to persons who willingly know that they are HIV-positive and pass it on. I know there are laws in other countries.