“You’re welcome!”
Sunny Dawson (not his real name) jumped with joy when he received his medicine from Bai Hua. “You're an angel sent by God,” he said to him.
Mr Dawson is an English teacher at a school in a small town in northern China. In January, he went on a vacation to his home country in south-east Asia, but his journey back to China turned out not to be as easy as his journey out. The coronavirus outbreak that started in December 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei Province, and quickly swept across China has posed big challenges to everybody’s life. But because he is living with HIV, the challenges for him were probably greater.
Rushing back to China
News about the outbreak in China hit the headlines in Mr Dawson’s home country during his vacation. “All my family objected to me going back to China,” he said. But he loves China and wanted to go back. “I needed to rush back before flights were stopped,” he said. His family conceded, his father giving him a big bag of face masks before his departure.
He thought he was fully prepared, but when his flight landed, he could feel that things were different. All the passengers had to have their temperature checked, one by one. Mr Dawson was wearing heavy clothes that day and was sweating a little—his temperature read 37.6 degrees Celsius. He and some other passengers were sent to a nearby hospital for further tests.
He tested negative for COVID-19, but soon after learned from the head teacher of his school that the small town he works in has been put under lockdown—he couldn’t go back to where he worked.
Since he is living with HIV, he needs to take antiretroviral medicine every day. He had only taken a one-week supply with him on his vacation, though, and it was running out.
BaiHuaLin alliance of people living with HIV comes in to help
Mr Dawson remembered Bai Hua , the founder of the BaiHuaLin alliance of people living with HIV, a community-based organization dedicated to supporting people living with HIV, including help with refills of medicine. BaiHuaLin was the organization that reached out to him when he was scared and lonely after being diagnosed with HIV a year before.
The coronavirus outbreak left many people like Mr Dawson at risk of running out of their medicine because they were stranded away from their usual HIV service provider. The BaiHuaLin alliance helps people in need of HIV medicine to get their refills by using an extensive network of volunteers that covers the whole country and extends globally. “Too many people need refills these days. We are terribly busy,” Bai Hua said.
When he received Mr Dawson’s call for help, he told him to come to his office immediately to pick up the seven-day refill he had requested. However, only a few days later he had to return for more because his stay in Beijing had been extended indefinitely. “My colleagues told me not to go back in the near future because the shops are closed under the lockdown,” he said. This time, Bai Hua gave him a month’s refill.
A strong partnership
The UNAIDS Country Office in China also felt the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on people living with HIV. “We received messages on social media from people living with HIV, expressing their frustration and desolation and seeking help,” a UNAIDS staffer said.
Because of HIV-related stigma, when faced with the risk of the disruption of medicines, people living with HIV often choose to keep their anxiety to themselves, afraid to reveal their status. “Some people say they would rather die than disclose their HIV status,” Bai Hua said. “One person sneaked out of his village and walked 30 kilometres to get the medicine.”
The UNAIDS Country Office in China has been working to ensure that the rights of people living with HIV are fully protected. In addition to giving out information, UNAIDS also actively works with the government and community-based organizations in China in order to ensure that people living with HIV get medicine refills.
Special pick-ups and mail deliveries of HIV medicines arranged by UNAIDS have reached more than 6000 people living with HIV in Wuhan.
Best yet to come
Mr Dawson finally got back home to the small town in northern China after staying in Beijing for more than two weeks. Still under quarantine, he misses an old man in the park near his apartment. “He was my calligraphy teacher. He always goes to the park, writing Chinese calligraphy on the ground,” he said. He gave Mr Dawson a piece of calligraphy, beautifully framed, that is now hung on the wall of his sitting room.
“I look forward to the day when the virus is gone,” he said, “So I can visit my friends and learn calligraphy in the park.”
