Ask any single–or any divorced woman for that matter–how hard dating is, and many will share just how difficult it is to find love. Now, what if you add that you are HIV-positive into that mix? Nearly impossible, right?
Well, Mandisa Dukashe was not only able to overcome her HIV-positive status and find love, but she’s also able to help others learn about and protect themselves from HIV.
Mandisa is a trained nurse and works in response to HIV to ensure quality control in health-care settings. She is living with HIV and encourages people to get tested for HIV. Her husband and two daughters are all HIV-negative. The picture with her family went viral in 2018 after being featured on the cover of the UNAIDS World AIDS Day report, Knowledge is power, as living proof that sustained HIV treatment can suppress a person’s viral load and prevent the transmission of HIV to a partner and children.
“This can be done by anyone,” she says confidently.
Dukashe is also the founder of the HIV Survivors and Partners Network, an NGO/PBO based in South Africa. Today, Mandisa serves on a number of HIV/AIDS steering committees for advocacy and civil society groups throughout South Africa.
–article originally found here—
Mandisa Dukashe was nervous before she took an HIV test in 2002. As a nursing student in South Africa, where more than 4 million people were living with HIV at the time, she knew it was possible that she would test positive for the virus. “I was very stressed,” she says. “I kept postponing the test.”
According to an in-depth interview with UNAIDS, Dukashe had learned about HIV while she was going to school for nursing, so the staff at the clinic assumed that she was well informed and didn’t need pretest counseling. “They told me I am a nursing student and should know what it entails.”
The test result was positive. Dukashe joined 510,000 other South Africans who became newly infected with HIV in 2002—20% of all new infections worldwide.
When Dukashe was diagnosed with HIV, South Africa had only recently started to roll out treatment and it was five years before she got access to it. It was harder to come by then, with limited medicine formulations that were only prescribed for people falling ill with an AIDS-related illness.
After the initial shock and dismay, it didn’t take Dukashe long to embrace her status, pick herself back up, and spread the word. She wanted to warn other young people to avoid HIV infection, take a test, and seek support if they tested HIV-positive. “After the counseling, I felt so bold and confident and I was ready within a week to go out and tell the world with the intention of raising awareness, in particular among young women and adolescent girls.”
“At first I didn’t want to reveal my HIV status because I knew that it could be an issue, so I focused on my nursing studies. Eventually, I fell in love with a guy and I feared he would reject me, but I had to tell him—I cannot live a lie.”
But things weren’t always easy for her. Dukashe was married when she was diagnosed. “Some people say that HIV can bring you closer, but… that wasn’t to be.” They eventually divorced and it took time before Ms. Dukashe found love again. “At first, I didn’t want to reveal my HIV status because I knew that it could be an issue, so I focused on my nursing studies. Eventually, I fell in love with a guy and I feared he would reject me, but I had to tell him—I cannot live a lie. It took me three months to disclose my status, but to my surprise, his response was much better than I hoped. He remains HIV-negative and he is the best husband and father of my children that I could ever ask for. When you have got that kind of support you can live healthily and even forget about HIV.”
Despite the love and support of her husband and family, the weight of living with HIV came flooding back to Dukashe when she and her husband started planning to have children. “When the time came for us to talk about preventing HIV transmission to our children, we needed to think carefully, plan and consult medical experts. That brought it all back for me and I got depressed for a while.”
But help was available, she says. “I got counseling and worked through those feelings and it was all worth it. I now have two wonderful children who were born without HIV. It was my responsibility and also my husband’s responsibility. We got great support and advice.
“Being able to give birth to HIV-negative children was a blessing because I believe if I did not test, my kids could have been born with HIV.”
“I want to encourage everybody in our situation: there is life after HIV, there is love. People should not think twice about going for an HIV test. It was the best decision I ever made, since I learned what to do to keep myself healthy and prevent transmission to my spouse and children. Thinking twice is not going to change the result.”
To read the entire original article, click here.