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High risk behaviour: the forgotten Vapositori of Southern Africa
Thuletu Hanene, HealthDev.net
June 11, 2009

http://healthdev.net/site/post.php?s=5404

The Vapositori religious sect originally from Zimbabwe, is one of the groups following high risky behaviour but has been largely forgotten in the response to HIV.

This group is closely knit and strongly grounded within its tradition and belief systems making it difficult for most AIDS service providers in southern Africa to target its members with AIDS prevention messages.

The Vapositori are found in most parts of the region including Zimbabwe, Malawi, Botswana, South Africa and Zambia. They are also found in East African countries such as Kenya and Tanzania. The group has even expanded to parts of Europe and United States.

The religious sect is practicing what researchers have proved to be the driving forces of the HIV epidemic here in Southern Africa including early marriages, polygamy, multiple concurrent partnerships (MCP), unsafe sex and transgenerational sex.

To make matters worse, members of the group don't seek any medical attention once they have fallen sick nor do their women attend antenatal clinics when pregnant making it difficult to track the HIV prevalence within the group. They continue to miss out on other health services such as check-ups for cancer, TB or sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including HIV.

Most important of all, is that they are well known cross border or inter-city traders, who use the normal buses and trucks to travel between countries in the region. They usually spend more than a week at trading markets in most of the countries they do business.

I have been in the HIV sector since 1999 and I don't recall any international or local NGO that has included the Vapositori in its AIDS awareness campaigns nor do I know if there are any who are prepared to include them in the near future.

This will have a negative effect not only on the general population but to PLHIV as some of their members have been enrolled on TB treatment and ART. They have never been educated on positive prevention since they are not willing to take part in activities by other PLHIV at the clinics they receive their drugs. As a result, they continue to miss opportunities to receive education on re-infection and treatment adherence.

When the project "Corridors of Hope" began in southern Africa, this group was supposed to be one of its target beneficiaries, yet no one thought about it. It 's a pity that more than 25 years into the HIV pandemic, this group still remains forgotten.

I recently attended the burial of one of my uncles who was a member of this sect. He is survived by six wives, five known MCP now popularly referred as small houses, the youngest wife being 19 years. He inherited over 10 spouses from his late eight brothers and had a number of unknown previous relationships with girlfriends not only here in Zambia but also in Botswana, Malawi, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

He was able to take care of all his wives before he got sick but he was sick for almost three years before he died and most of his wives became cross border traders during his long illness. It is most probable that most of them could have been involved in both transactional or transgenerational sex which is so common among this religious sect. Most of their girl children are married off as soon as they reach puberty which can be between 11 - 15 years.

I suspect that this uncle of mine died of AIDS related illness but I can't say for sure if he was HIV positive, as he never went to any health centre during the 3 years of his long illness. That was due to the fact that his church doesn't allow its members to seek medical services but I know that he lost three wives to possibly AIDS related illness in the last five years. His late wives never received any medical attention as well.

Those of us involved in the AIDS response are completely ignoring this group not realising that they are a threat not only to their fellow church members but also to our children, especially school girls who travel by bus both locally or provincially. Most members of this group are employed as taxi, buses or truck drivers and they are economically well even during this global financial crisis.

They belong to a few groups of working people that can afford to abuse alcohol and other drugs, pay for sex usually unsafe sex as most of them have never been educated about the importance of condom use to prevent HIV, avoid re-infection for those already infected. Their religion doesn't encourage condom use.

It's up to all of us as AIDS and TB activists to start a campaign on how to reach members of this group who are still living as if they are in the pre-HIV era. Groups such as NAC, ZINGO, NZP+, TALC, local and international NGOs as well as PLHIV should start engaging members of this group during AIDS awareness campaigns.

I challenge those implementing HIV programs in areas where the Vapositori sect live to find ways to include them in activities not only here in Zambia but in other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa because as long as they are not part of the response to HIV, we will never succeed. They continue to die because of suspected AIDS related illness which can be easily managed by the local clinics.

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