CAIRO, 22 February 2008 (PlusNews) - Eight Egyptian men who were arrested and forced to undergo HIV tests, and the subsequent torture of the two who tested HIV-positive, has unleashed a storm of controversy in a country where people still know very little about the virus.
"You can find people who know what you are talking about when you talk about AIDS, but I could say that most people who live here don't know the difference between a person with HIV and a person with AIDS," said UNAIDS Country Officer Wessam El-Beih. "They will say that this is not something that exists in Egypt."
In late 2007, eight men in the capital, Cairo, were charged with debauchery after allegedly accepting money for sex. They were subjected to mandatory HIV tests, and the two who had tested positive were taken to a Cairo hospital for treatment and initially chained to their beds, according to the rights lobby group, Human Rights Watch.
"The hospital is not a prison, it is an open place and they could escape, so at first they actually were chained down so that they would not get away," said Zein El-Taher, director of the National AIDS Programme (NAP). "We asked that they be uncuffed, and they were. We even said we would be held accountable [should they escape] ... I did this so no one would say that they [the authorities] discriminate against people with HIV in Egypt."
UNAIDS estimates that about 13,000 people were living with the virus in 2005 - an HIV prevalence rate of less than 0.1 percent in a population of 80 million - so most Egyptians believe HIV/AIDS does not affect their lives, El-Beih told IRIN/PlusNews.
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