Iceland review - 2007, Page 46

52 ICELAND REVIEW
remain silent. Together, they saw their HIV diagnosis as a “death sent­
ence” – they were simply meant to be together, and eventually die
together. At the time, in the early to mid­90s, her outlook was one of
simply wait­and­see. She drank more, smoked more, avoided the
dentist and wallowed in a pool of self­pity where shame grounded
itself. “For me, it lasted years, thinking that I was dirty and that I had
been a bad girl. Or that I was to blame, especially this sensation of
feeling somehow dirty,” she says. “Also I had this idea that it’s something
that happens to someone else – homosexuals, drug addicts, these kinds
of things don’t happen to you. I was just an innocent girl from Iceland
and these things happened to someone else.”
As of mid­November, a total of 207 people have been diagnosed
with HIV in Iceland since 1983, 12 of whom were diagnosed this year.
As of December 2006, 37 of the 195 diagnosed with HIV have died
from AIDS. Long gone are the days when homosexual men dominated
the statistics; HIV in Iceland spans all social strata and ethnicities, from
the highest and most educated echelons of the population right down
to the destitute. Last year, only two of the 11 HIV diagnoses were
among homosexual or bisexual men; seven contracted it from hetero­
sexual contact. But the most disturbing fact of all is that half of this
year’s 12 diagnoses are believed to stem from contaminated needles from
intravenous drug use. And the fear of a possible out break because of drug
abuse is a universal concern among the gay rights activists and the entire
medical community, including Dr. Haraldur Briem, Iceland’s state epidemio­
logist, and Thórarinn Tyrfingsson, chairman and chief medical director of
SÁÁ, Iceland’s National Center of Addiction Medicine.
Every single patient admitted to SÁÁ has been screened for HIV since
1985. Prior to this year, there were no more than two cases of HIV in­
fection among injecting drug users except for 1986, when there were
five. But the problem, says Dr. Briem, is that in most cases of needle
abuse, the people are in such dire straits that they don’t seek consistent
medical treatment even though it’s offered for free. Currently, there is
no needle exchange program in Iceland – where abusers can trade a
dirty needle for a clean one – but debates and discussions about such
programs, which are common in larger nations and metropolitan areas,
are in the works. Currently, needles are easily accessible and inexpensive
in Icelandic pharmacies, about ISK 9 per needle (USD 0.15, EUR
0.19), thanks to a campaign in the late 1980s led by Dr. Briem and the
state’s then­chief medical officer Dr. Ólafur Ólafsson to help curb the
problem. As the society progresses, though, the question is whether
this is enough. “This could be a big bubble that doesn’t lead anywhere,”
says Dr. Briem. “But if this seems to increase, we have to do something.”
Unaids, the United Nations’ AIDS­fighting agency, issued a report
in November stating that it had overestimated the size of the epidemic
worldwide, and has lowered its figure to 33.2 million infected from the
late 2006 figure of 39.5 million. The statistics ref lect new surveys in
India and several African nations where the virus is prevalent. In any
case, HIV and AIDS know no boundaries and have reached the farthest,
wealthiest corners of the earth. If anything, it’s almost a fable in Iceland
because people like Anna still remain more or less under the radar. The
worst part, says Anna, is that she believes she’s compromising her
principles somewhat because secrecy is responsible for maintaining
some of the prejudice – so by refusing to disclose her name in this story,
she’s somehow contributing to the problem. “I’ve come to the con­
clusion that the secrecy is always leading to the society having prejudice
against us because we are kept so hidden. And we hide ourselves. So
people obviously think: hmm, it must be so bad, there’s so much shame
connected to this, they must be kept undercover!”
Iceland’s physical isolation as an island seems to breed a kind of purist
mentality among its population that trickles from the people right
down to their animals. Take a horse, for example. Once it leaves, it is
issued a passport and cannot return, which is simply a matter of disease
control. The notion of being tainted carries certain implications in
Iceland that exist to a much lesser extent in larger nations. And that
sense of shame and dirtiness is only magnified in the microcosm of
Iceland’s smallness. Though Anna speaks very openly and comfortably
about her condition, she recalls how it felt when she was newly diagnosed,
“I think somehow you think it shows. It almost feels like you have
something written somewhere that you belong to a minority group that
people are afraid of.”
Ingi Rafn Hauksson was the fourth person in Iceland to go public
with his HIV+ status in 1993. He came forward because he was
fed up with the taboo and discrimination associated with HIV
and AIDS, and was twice fired from work because he voluntarily
disclosed his status to his employers. Both he and Anna remember
when they would enter a hospital and immediately be quarantined in
an isolated room. “They were dressed like they were going to the
moon,” says Hauksson, 45, who remembers the exact date and time,
October 8, 1992, at 12:02 a.m. when he contracted the virus, hav ing
unprotected sex while intoxicated in Amster dam with a man whose
name he did not know. Times have changed: in usual patient contact,
nothing is used and gloves only when, say, drawing blood. Sometimes
masks or goggles are used if spattering is expected.