HIV/AIDS – Arseh Sevom

December 1, 2011

Marking World AIDS Day

Arseh Sevom -- This is the Day Without Art, a day meant to bring attention to HIV/AIDS. Tackling the disease and its attendant stigma has been a task that has given rise to creative, confrontational, and effective civil society actors all over the world.HIV/AIDS has been addressed by many different factions of civil society in Iran. Today we honor the work of Drs. Arash and Kamiar Alaei, who spent several years in prison in Iran on unspecified charges.In an interview, Dr. Kamiar Alaei had this to say about their work:

We had no real idea about how to design a programme, so we just asked patients what they wanted. As a physician, I assumed that what my patients needed most was care. I found out that they also really needed counselling on how to cope with HIV. Some people said their husbands and wives had left them. Some committed suicide out of despair.

October 6, 2011

Featured Issue: HIV/AIDS

Since the middle of the 1980s, Iran, like most other countries in the world, has grappled with a growing number of citizens diagnosed with the Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). In a series of articles, we will be looking into the ways in which civil society organizations and activists have worked to bring more awareness to the disease, curb its growth, and work with governments to improve policy. In this first article, we will be providing a brief history and prevalence of AIDS in Iran.A 2011 report by the United Nations Development Program in Iran claims that HIV/AIDS was brought to Iran in two waves – the first wave in the mid-1980s and the second wave in the 1990s. According to the report, the first wave is attributed to transmission of the virus through blood transfusions of blood infected with the virus. The second was noted in prisons where unsafe practices led to infection.Over the past few years, though, the use of illicit drugs in Iran has compounded the problem. Almost 2.8% of Iran’s population are addicted to opiates.