Covid19 vs HIV?

Almost everyday, i received a few DMs in my twitter account, @HelmiTheOne asking how am i doing, and asking for guidances and what not, some even ask me medical questions through my own personal experience. 

I am touched by the people that reached out to me even if its just to ask how am i doing. I am no expert in this field. I am just living a day at a time as a positive person with a positive mindset. Hoping that one day, i can somehow change the way people perceived this virus as something negative and also hoping that one day, we will have a cure. 

Maybe not many of you have known that in addition to this virus, i was covidpositive too a few months back ( talk about hard luck huh! hehe). But everything was fine. I was scared at first when my colleague whatsapp in the office whatsapp group telling everyone that he was covidpositive. I did some research as well, not many of cases reported that hiv positive person died from covid19 ( thank god). But that dont stop my worry. More questions ran through my mind like to whom did i risk the infection. what will the contact tracing be like. and will the symptoms worse because of our pre existing conditions? Do i have to tell everyone that in addition to the covid virus, theres already a virus in me? so many questions, so many worries... But gladly, ive moved beyond that. I recovered without any serious complications. Just mild fever. 

But ONE main thing that i noticed and discover is that the stigma is still here inside of us. The stigma of any infection regardless of where you got it, the self stigma, the stigma from the neighbours ( although i lived in an area where everyone are pretty much educated and above average, still when it comes to this, it seemed that fear of the virus is bigger than anything), and the irony, the stigma at my workplace. Huh. hello, i got it from an office meeting. Why would they stigmatised me for that right?( we have a covid groups in the office now, that all of us shared how we were stigmatised by our officemates for the first few weeks after recovering from covid19). But personally, i dont blamed them. I know everyone is afraid of this virus. Afraid of how easy this virus can infect anyone, and once it is in the community, the contact tracing seems neverending like a domino effect. I understand their concerns, their fears and their actions. Its just something that we have to deal with. Just that i wish they would read more? Understand more. 

Another point that i would like to add is, although everyone is afraid of covid virus, its easier to say "Im covid positive" rather than "im hiv positive". Because of the mass advertisement campaign by the government, and organisations, people are becoming more and more educated in these. i even saw a Raya advertisement on covid19 and how you should not stigmatised them. Good job to the MYDIN team for a very meaningful Raya advertisement. The best line for the people who stigmatised covid patients would be " Nak dengar cakap you ke nak dengar cakap doctor?" kata makcik bawang berbilang bangsa itu. Thank you for that. Now sometimes i wish hiv would have the same campaign as well, instead of being branded as a taboo topic despite in existence for than 30years. But dont stress about the things that we cant changed. Keep on inspiring other people and lets hope one day. we are branded as just a sickness rather than the punishment from God. One day right? 

Till then. im signing off. Dont forget to follow me on twitter. @HelmiTheOne 

Thank you. Miss writing in here. Will try to write again soon. 

p/s: anak dah nak masok 3. haha