Youth Knowledge on Transmission of HIV/AIDS in Stellenbosch Area, South Africa Does SocioEconomics, Gender and Race Play a Role?
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Kurs SAD483 vt 2008 Examensarbete 20 poäng / 30 högskolepoäng Youth knowledge on transmission of HIV/AIDS in Stellenbosch area, South Africa - Does socio-economics, gender and race play a role? Författare: Anna Sonrei Abstract This thesis investigates learners, from grade 8-12, medical and cultural knowledge of how HIV and AIDS transmit. The investigation was performed in four different schools with structurally different backgrounds set in Stellenbosch area, South Africa. One could expect people from different structural and economic classes to react and interpret educational material differently based on their differing belief systems. These differences in belief systems are normally brought about by families© differences in ethnical, religious, economic and educational background. Some elements of some belief systems may even be incompatible with the educational material presented. For instance, beliefs based on traditional medicine and/or religion may propose non-scientific solutions to cure or live with HIV/AIDS. The Department of Education National Education Policy Act on HIV/AIDS for Learners in Public Schools 1996 (Notice of 1999), WHO, UNICEF, UNAIDS, UNFPA and other NGOs have all come together in the issue of HIV/AIDS and are on the same page on how the virus transmits. The South African government have been ambivalent in the issue of HIV/AIDS and have acted and made some contradictive comments that also could influence how people view this disease. This thesis presents the understanding of the HIV/AIDS phenomenon by learners of different ages that represent the most prominent races and the different economic classes in the Western Cape region of South Africa at the time of writing in 2006-2007. These learners all received science-based HIV/AIDS education (life skills orientation) at their schools. The result shows that there are differences in learners© knowledge of how HIV/AIDS transmits from a socio-economic, gender, racial point of view. Special thanks to Gerhard Scheepers for making this essay possible. Table of Content page 1. Background 1 1.1 South Africa and HIV/AIDS 1 2. Purpose of Research 5 2.1 Question of research 5 2.2 Limitations 5 3. Western Cape 6 3.1 Statistics 6 3.2 Xhosa 6 3.3 Cape Coloured 7 3.4 White Afrikaans and Anglo-South Africans 8 4. Theory 9 4.1 Pierre Bourdieu, custom and social structures 9 5. Methodical starting points 12 5.1 Qualitative and quantitative research 12 5.2 Primary and secondary data 12 5.3 Questionnaire 13 5.4 Non-response 14 5.5 The investigates schools 14 5.5.1 Kayamandi Secondary School 15 5.5.2 Lückhoff Secondary School 15 5.5.3 Stellenbosch High School 15 5.5.4 Helderberg High School 16 5.6 The working process 16 5.7 The value of my research 18 5.8 Data analysis 19 5.8.1 X 2-analysis (chi-square) 19 6. World views of HIV/AIDS 20 6.1 HIV/AIDS 20 6.2 HIV can be transmitted in three main ways 21 6.3 The Department of Education 21 6.4 The South African Government AIDS denialism 22 6.5 Transformation of information to learners 25 7. Result and analysis 26 7.1 To what extent does socio-economics play a role in learners knowledge on HIV/AIDS transmits? 30 7.1.1 Discussion 35 7.2 To what extent does gender play a role in learners knowledge on HIV/AIDS transmits? 37 7.2.1 Discussion 42 7.3 To what extent does race play a role in learners knowledge on HIV/AIDS transmits? 43 7.3.1 Discussion 49 8. End Discussion 50 9. Reference 52 Attachment 1: WCED approval of conducting questionnaire Attachment 2: Questionnaire about HIV/AIDS 1. Background In this first chapter there will be a discussion surrounding the HIV/AIDS problem in South Africa. First some statistics and then a brief introduction of the problems that has been brought on from the pandemic, with slow governmental policy on antiretroviral drugs, as well as, the aftermath that the virus brings for families and society. 1.1 South Africa and HIV/AIDS Unlike any other epidemic in history, AIDS poses one of the most brutal attacks the world has witnessed. More devastating than the plague and the Spanish Flu, AIDS is unique in that victims are not random. The epidemic has a young woman's face, and nowhere is this truer than in Africa where nearly 60 per cent of people living with HIV and AIDS are women (Commission for Africa, 2005, p.201). Source: Commission for Africa - the spread of the AIDS pandemic in Africa. Lowest Intermediate-low Intermediate-high Highest 2005 it was estimated that there were about 25,8 million people living with HIV/AIDS (of totally between 36.7 ± 45.3 million people globally) in Sub-Saharan Africa. This means that Sub-Saharan Africa is the home for approximately 60 % of all people living with HIV/AIDS although it has just over 10 % of the world's population. The population in South Africa was about 45 million in 2004, but has by 2007 dropped to 43.9 million due to HIV/AIDS (population growth rate ±0,46 %, 2007). The adult (age 15-49 years) HIV prevalence rate was about 21.5 % in 2003, which means that there 1 were 5.1 million people living with HIV, an additional 200 000 are children (age 0-15 years) living with the virus. In South Africa (as well as in the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa) women are the most infected (population of 2007 estimates that 51% is female in South Africa). In South Africa this disease kills around 600 people a day (Gumede, M, 2005, UNAIDS, 2004, CIA, The world fact book, 2006-05-16, Commission for Africa, 2005, Statistics South Africa, 2008-05-18). Because of the pandemic and threat of contracting the virus in South Africa it is interesting to see what youth know medically about HIV/AIDS. It was not until 2004 the South African government rolled out anti-retroviral drugs that could save millions of people at state hospitals. Although the conclusions of mainstream scientists on HIV/AIDS almost a decade before, President Thabo Mbeki set up a council to examine the cause of the disease, rather than focusing on practical ways to scrub the pandemic that was raging over the country. Thabo Mbeki was not alone in this HIV/AIDS denial. The South African health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, publicly clamed that people was dying from the side effects of the anti-retroviral drugs used for treating the disease. She came up with an alternative therapy of treatment, advising people to turn to a diet of raw garlic, lemon and beetroot (Gumede, M, 2005, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), 2006, Heywood, 2004). Before the roll out plan, only people with expensive private medical health insurances could afford anti-retroviral drugs, that is, less than 20 000 South Africans. The Governments excuse of the foot dragging behaviour was that of the potential toxicity and costs of the ARV, lack of efficiency and that the drug was not being made available at state expense. The pharmaceutical companies are protecting their drug from the manufacture or import of cheaper versions of their drug due to the views that the high price are necessary for research and development cost. In India generic anti- AIDS drugs are sold for a quarter of the price the big pharmaceutical companies are charging. The Western ARV protocol requires that a patient takes up to twelve pills a day, at different times, all produced by different companies, whilst the Indian alternative is combining three drugs into the same pill that had to be taken twice a day. The Government of South Africa could not stand the pressure from the western pharmaceutical companies and opted for the more complex and expensive treatment in its limited ARV roll-out (Whitaker, R, 2004, Gumede, M, 2005). 2 In developing countries, silence of the virus is harsher, mostly because it is mixed up with the pathologies of poverty and deprivation, violence against women, gender inequalities among other things. The consequences of HIV/AIDS for South Africa are devastating both socially, economically and health wise. The statistics show that most of the people in South Africa with the decease are women at their prime of their productive life: food producers, mothers, carers, teachers etc. But HIV/AIDS does not just attack an individual, it also attacks the children left behind and the grandparents, pressed into levels of childcare and food production they, at that age, might not be equipped for. The number of orphans has been rising and the emotional impacts of million of people that are loosing somebody loved, and the social instability and crime that might follow, can only be guessed. Calculations of the costs in treatment of all South Africans by 2010 are the sum of $ 2.4 billion to $ 3 billion a year (Gumede, M, 2005, UNAIDS, 2004, Commission for Africa, 2005, Heywood, 2004). Generally women are less informed about HIV/AIDS than men in sub-Saharan Africa. The same is true when comparing rural areas with people living in cities and towns. Data from various surveys have shown that two thirds or more of young women, between 15-24 years, did not have sufficient knowledge of HIV transmission whereas men were 20 % more likely to have the correct knowledge (UNAIDS/WHO, 2005) Young men and women reflect different sexual lifestyles where men are more likely to buy sex and have more occasional or temporary sexual contacts than women. Women in stable relationships are then more likely increasingly exposed to the risk of contracting HIV.