ONE MAN’S WORD ABOUT AIDS/HIV: ELVIS BASUDDE BRINGS YOU TRUTH ABOUT THE PLAQUE

The difference between you and the two of us (Major Rubaramira and i) is that we know our HIV sero-status. It could be you are yet to test for HIV, but so what if you are HIV-positive? You still have a long productive life ahead of you, and you can still live as long as you would have lived. Major retired Rubaramira Ruranga was 37 years old when he discovered that he had the HIV virus. He takes up the rest of the story:
“But I am now 68. If I died today, will I have died of AIDS? Not at all. I promised myself that I will have children. Nobody should deny me to have children because of my HIV status. I have had six children when I live with the virus, and none of them has the virus. The first one is 16 years old and he is in S4.
VIRAL LOAD
“There is no doubt that when you have you viral load done and you find it is undetectable, you have a chance never to infect any other person. For me that is the most important thing. If you are going to address the issue of prevention, then the viral load is the answer, and if we are going to make sure that the virus doest spread, viral load is the answer.”
“Nobody can remove the virus other than ourselves. The only way to do it is to ensure that you do your viral load and take your medicines properly. I take my medicine religiously. My viral load is undetectable and my CD4 is whooping 1,989! I know there are people who don’t have HIV and they don’t have those CD 4 count. So, a person with HIV lives a normal life like any other person as long as you do your viral load and test you CD 4 count.”
“We can stop HIV. Yes, we can. We have got rid of AIDS. Why should we have AIDS when the medicine is there? It is sacrilegious to have AIDS. HIV is also going. Yes, HIV is also going. But how do we do it? I have always thought the government should address the issue of primary health care. If we did the primary health care the drugs in the hospitals will not be necessary. If we did all that we are required to do to start with hygiene, much of the diseases we get are from poor hygiene, and poor sanitation which is all primary health care. I do not get hospitalized because I know what to do. So, I appeal to government to look at people living with HIV as a very important component of fighting HIV.”
“.I want people living with HIV to start thinking of a coup d’état. We should take a coup d’état to overthrow these people who are managing HIV. We are better than them; we understand it better than anybody else since we live with it (HIV virus) every single day. This job is ours we should be the one taking a lead.”