For years, João Fernando has been educating and counseling men and their partners on the health benefits of voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) in preventing HIV. As a community mobilizer in the fight to reduce HIV-related deaths, he has reached dozens of men in Macuelia, in Zambézia Province, and even escorted his 14-year-old son to
Juba, South Sudan – Put yourself in Mary’s shoes. Imagine being 17, living in South Sudan, and learning that you are HIV-positive. Your family rejects you so you run away, desperate to keep your “secret” from others. You want to die and figure that stopping your antiretrovirals (ARVs) will hasten the end. However, before despair
When Amoin Agnès Akou learned she was HIV-positive, she worried—to the point of considering suicide—that people would find out. Even as she sought treatment, she kept her HIV status secret. Until recently. “My three grown-up children do not know I am HIV-positive,” she divulged during a health club meeting at the Centre de Santé Urbain
