By Gordana Basovic

Maria I. (45), a nurse at a Belgrade hospital, has completely changed her attitude toward life five years ago. When she accidentally found out that she is infected with HIV, everything has turned upside down. The worse part of the story, she says, was the living memory of how did it happen and whenever she thought of telling her husband about her trouble dark clouds would have come over her. But her husband, whom she was married to for three years at the moment, was not surprised. He was the one who infected his wife.

Maria`s husband was HIV positive for many years, and his marriage with Maria was the third one from the moment he has found out that he is seriously ill.

"I`m not sure if I was angrier with my husband, myself or life in general. I divorced and then I told my boss about my test results, expecting to be dismissed. Luckily, my boss was very well informed about that disease and I kept my job. I was switched to another position which did not require contact with patients and I was advised not to talk about my illness because delusions and fear may easily change people and their relations toward an infected person", says Maria.

The most difficult part was announcing this news to her closest family, she says.

"I was the one who had to console them at the beginning. They made peace with it in time, for I also got used to the life with HIV. I`m still surrounded by fears and misapprehensions, yet less than before. My happiness was endless when a friend of mine, who gave birth to a lovely baby, invited me over and asked me to hold her baby in my arms", explains Maria.

One has to bear in mind that our apprehension of HIV and AIDS does not always consist of numbers and statistics. Its social aspect, which implies the relations toward infected or diseased one, is of high importance. No matter how many researches have been done, we will always lack the right picture of how our community treats and acts with HIV-infected people, or a picture of collective fear we all have to leave behind, or of fake moral one has to express if he/she does not want to be legally responsible for discrimination.

In the past few decades Serbia has achieved European standard regarding HIV infected treatment, but healing Serbian society "contagious" with prejudices still remains a challenge.

Our apprehensions and attitudes are one thing, but real life consists of a battle between rugged and obnoxious. Stigmated life and fear that follows it make people invisible, displaced far enough from publicity. The system of prevention is unnoticed.

Since 1981, when AIDS was mentioned in lethal disease`s lexicon for the first time, this virus has killed more than 33 million people, 2.7 million have been infected in the course of previous year and two million lives were taken away in 2007. This indicated that AIDS doesn`t infect other people but us, and that these facts mark it as the most destructive disease in the history of a mankind.

A slight glance on epidemic atlas shows that the former USSR republics have been specified as the new epicentres of this illness in Europe, for 90 percent of all HIV-infected in Europe live in Russia and Ukraine. Epidemiologists warn that the face of AIDS is becoming younger and more female, because women represent half of the HIV-infected population and 45 percent of the HIV-infected population are among 15 to 24 years old. Condom, being the only protection so far, is in the hands of a men, and it already makes women an unequal rival against this diabolical disease.

AIDS has not passed by Serbia. In the past 13 years, 2.299 people infected with HIV were registered, 1.398 of which have AIDS, and two thirds of infected have passed away.

Dr Daniela Simic, epidemiologist working with the Institute for Public Health of Serbia "Dr Milan Jovanovic Batut", explains that the unsafe sex has become the most prominent way of transferring the AIDS virus, adding that medical data notes the decline of intravenous drug addicted, but also the increase between homosexuals and heterosexuals among infected.

"Out of the 74 people infected in the course of 2007, half of them got the HIV through homosexual relations, one third through heterosexual and 15 percent are intravenous drug users. What concerns most is that one fifth involves men who have had a sexual relation with another man, simultaneously having an intercourse with a female, among which almost half of them used condoms - and that is, from the point of epidemiologists` view, a life playing. However, no risk group includes more than five percent of infected people, which aligns Serbia among countries with low HIV rate", stresses dr Simic.

In the first half of 2008, according to her words, 55 infected people were registered in Serbia.

"The largest number of HIV infected include people from 15 to 39 years old, and the number of infected and deceased men is three times bigger then the number of infected and deceased women", says dr Simic.

However, Karlo Boras, director of the JAZAS (Yugoslav Youth Association against AIDS) warns that the number of HIV tested is still very low in Serbia, adding that homosexuals become AIDS concentrated population.

"One of the reasons why this epidemic has spread among homosexuals is a progress achieved in AIDS therapy. AIDS has developed into a chronic disease, which may not necessarily interrupt one`s life if a proper therapy is applied. That is why, according to the researchers, young homosexuals think: `So what if I get infected? One pill a day will prolong my life`. But even if this population was the first one that learnt how to protect themselves, now it has become careless regarding HIV infection transfer", says Boras.

Although lives of HIV-infected can be prolonged much more than few years ago thanks to the new medications, the "social death" remains one of the most significant problems, which completely isolates diseased.