Africans with disabilities are at higher risk of HIV

NOMASOMI LIMAKOHIVHIVHIV, who lives in South Africa, was often told that she could not get because she is wheelchair-bound. She had never met a disabled person with the disease, as far as she knew, so she believed the rumour. Then came her own diagnosis. Today the 48-year-old pharmacy assistant knows that her disability actually made her more vulnerable to the disease. Even as covid-19 creates a new public-health crisis, Africa is continuing to grapple with an old one. Studies show that Africans with disabilities are at least twice as likely to get as those without.One reason is that disability compounds ’s other risk factors. Disabled children are often excluded from school, so many receive no sex education. Even for those in school, a widespread assumption that disabled people do not have sex means that teachers think they do not need to learn about it. In Ethiopia more than three-quarters of 10- to 24-year-olds with disabilities had never discussed sex with their parents. Social status matters, too. Even in places where disabled people know more about condoms than everyone else, such as Uganda, they still have higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases. Researchers think this is because the disabled have a tougher time negotiating with their partners about having safe sex.