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Introduction
“You know the church, the people of the church are the people of the community, you know. And so, community issues become the issues of the church”
Globally 39 million people live with HIV [1] and 8.45 million in South Africa [2]. This study reports on data collected in the Western Cape province of South Africa in 2018 when the national cases of people living with HIV (PLWH) stood at 7.52 million [3] with an estimated prevalence of 12.6% in 2017 [4]. HIV remains a cause for concern and HIV stigma needs to be addressed (or acknowledged).
Background
HIV stigma is one of the leading causes of social problems for PLWH as it influences the way they view themselves, the way they are viewed by others, and the complex relationships with community members [5, 6]. It has even been said that it is HIV stigma that kills people, not acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) [7].
Fear of HIV is a problem reflected in anticipated and/or perceived stigma. Anticipated stigma is the expectation that PLWH will experience prejudice and discrimination [8]. Perceived stigma is when people think that other people treat PLWH badly [9]. As part of their systematic review about the association between HIV stigma and depressive symptoms among PLWH, MacLean and Wetherall found that in South Africa anticipated stigma ranged from 24.4 to 43% and experienced stigma from 43.5 to 88% [8]. A recent South African study found that 75% of participants agreed that perceived stigma towards PLWH was prominent in their community [9]. In contrast, a recent analysis of stigma data from Zambia and South Africa reported perceived stigma in the community (63%) is much higher than the stigma actually experienced by PLWH (22%) [10]. Perceived stigma has negative implications for disclosure of HIV status as fear of HIV and HIV stigma remains high [11]. Stangl et al. further found that perceived stigma in a healthcare setting by community members was at 30.3% and by healthcare workers at 43.4% [10]. This shows that stigma in healthcare settings remains a concern. Alio et al. further found that 49% of faith leaders participating in their study viewed HIV as a concern in their communities [12].
Both faith communities and healthcare centres are built on the...