Pre-marital screening: Do you know about your HIV status?

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Hello Steemians,

Last Monday, I went to KPJ lab link in Kuala Lumpur - A privately owned lab which provides service for all sort of tests, one of it is an array of test for pre-marital screening.

Now, not many people know about this even amongst Malaysians but in Malaysia, it is compulsory for Muslim couples to have pre-marital screening done before they can get married - Get married in Malaysia that is since you can get away with that regulation if you crossed the border to Thailand and get married there

Needless to say, this means that I'm going to get married pretty soon and by soon, it's the end of this year to none other than my beautifully talented Malay-Chinese fiancée'.

What was amusing was that they have a specific package for male and female sets of test in their pre-marital screening portfolio and for the male, it included semen analysis to which, me and the rest of the people in health-care sector knows, meant I had to masturbate. But, the only real and important part of the test is the infectious diseases screening which encapsulates infection that can be sexually transmitted with the biggest emphasis on HIV and Hepatitis B.

I just went for the infectious disease screening

Thank god, I'm clean from any of these infections and the fact that I said "Thank god" means that I myself, do not know my status.

Now some of you may just say "Well as long as you've not been sleeping around or doing drugs, what do you have worry about?"

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Well, I'm in the healthcare sector and I deal with a lot of blood products and body fluids. Just because I'm not promiscuous or do drugs doesn't mean I cannot get these infections because blood-borne infection is a real and established occupational hazard for me. Case in point, we have cases of healthcare personnel acquiring these infections from their patients because of procedures and needle-stick injuries.

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What's more dangerous about HIV or Hepatitis B is that it can remain dormant in your body, not exhibiting any symptoms for years, in some, up to 10 years. This is the central reason why screening is of utmost importance and how HIV managed to spread under our noses all these years because people who have it, may not know they have it, making them think that they are fine and clean. As a result, they don't hesitate to have unprotected sex with their partner(s) and transmit the virus through their body fluid in the process.

Here's where education and understanding on HIV is important because it helps to augment the effort to curb the spread of HIV as well as to destroy the stigma around people with HIV. While sexual promiscuity and intravenous drug usage is an established route of transmission, we must not forget that vertical transmission (mother to fetus), needle stick injury, blood transfusion, sharing of toothbrush, razor blade, freaking RAPE VICTIMS and organ transplant are all real and proven ways to transmit the virus. That's a lot of people unaffiliated with social malign suffering from chronic HIV infection.

So, before we pass judgment and paint everyone with HIV with the same broad brush, give them the benefit of the doubt because a lot of them aren't responsible for it, they didn't ask for it.

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Although in Malaysia, only muslim couples are mandated under the law to go through pre-marital screening before getting married, I would advocate everyone to do that for the sake of the people they love. HIV is not longer a death sentenced, we have come a long way to developing treatment for HIV. Nowadays, we have daily pill to reduce the viral load in an HIV patient that effectively prevent the transmission of the virus. We also have pre-exposure prophylaxis for people at risk of getting HIV to further reduce the chance of getting the infection.

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Although no cure or vaccine has been effectively manufactured, the battle against HIV is getting close to a cure but before we get there, it's important that we obliterate the stigma and stereotypes surrounding HIV and AIDS. As most poster would say, AIDS do not kill, stigma does - To which I say, that's both wrong and right because AIDS is certain to led the patient to their imminent death as they do not have any protection.