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intimate with, so they are fine.
Then there would be the last group that is just scared to know.
One understands the fear but this needs to be overcome as it could be detrimental if left until too late.
Pedzisai is a man I met over the Christmas holidays when I visited one of the nursing homes in Harare.
He has been at the home for the past three months and is grateful that he was saved at the last minute.
The home which depends on support from well-wishers has patients referred there by its volunteer educators.
Pedzisai is aged 30 and said he was as strong as a horse before he got bed-ridden in his home area of Zhombe, Midlands, sometime in 2010.
“I worked as a gold panner along the Munyati River and made enough to look after my wife and three kids. Unfortunately, I would be away from home for long periods even a month or longer which was not conducive to marriage and my family as a whole,” said Pedzisai speaking from his wheelchair.
Pedzisai said at first when he engaged in extra-marital affairs he would always insist on the use of protection.
“I always used protection for the first three years I was in the ‘bush’ but as the years went by, I got used to one female who also said she was ready to stop working on a commercial basis and just be mine when I was in the field panning,” said Pedzisai.
Pedzisai said he did not bother to first take HIV tests together with his new “bush wife” but rather what he was concerned with was that she would not fall pregnant so he advised her to get the five-year family planning gadget inserted.
“I was concerned that I had a wife and kids at home so I did not want to have any more children, so all I did was to take her to Kwekwe where the device was inserted. I thought I was safe as my girlfriend was so fit. In the language we used as panners she is what was called as a DVD, meaning she was presentable and able to deliver,” said Pedzisai.
Pedzisai was attacked by a severe bout of fever when he was in the bush panning and his friends advised him to go home. He said he never managed to go back to the bush home to collect his belongings as his condition deteriorated when he got home.
He lost his father when he was young and his ageing mother could not cope with the grandchildren and the ailing son.
“When I came to this place I was as good as dead. A neighbour who had visited his family brought me in his car and since then no one has followed from my home, I guess they think I died,” said Pedzisai.
“My neighbour Enock said he knew of a place in Harare where I would be treated free of charge and he said I had lost my immunity by just looking at me. He said this needed to be confirmed when tests were done at the centre.
“He brought me straight here and the following day tests confirmed that I had both TB and was also HIV positive. I was devastated, back home I had believed that my relatives were jealous since I had built a brick and asbestos house, bought a herd of cattle and drilled a borehole, so I did not think that I could be HIV positive but was a case of family feuds,” said Pedzisai.
“In no time at all I was paralysed and was not able to feed myself. I was just waiting to die as it never crossed my mind that I could be assisted and get well. I was headstrong in my misdirected belief that I had been bewitched,” said Pedzisai.
“Back home I could not even lift a limb as I kept deteriorating on a daily basis and one day my wife left with the kids never to return. My mother went to check at her homestead but they professed ignorance of her whereabouts. I do not blame her, I would mess myself so maybe the going was tough and with no proper training she could not stomach the new situation,” he said.
Usually some people react to TB medication but that cannot be stopped. Now the addition of another strong dosage of medicine in the form of ARVs usually knocks some patients off balance. That, strictly speaking, is because they would have presented themselves at health centres in a very poor shape when their bodies are in no position to take the heavy dosages.
However, medication is continued and after sometime the body gets used to the drugs and only then do people begin to see an improvement.
Pedzisai is now able to move around in a wheelchair without assistance.
He has also commenced physiotherapy and now said he is able to use the toilet without assistance.
“I am so grateful to Enock, he visits me every Sunday and he said he would take me back in his car when I have fully recovered. He said he wants my family to get the shock of their life when we finally visit so I am on the path to recovery,” he said.
“The nurses here treat us well, I cannot complain even for someone like me with no personal caregiver from home, I am helped on the days I feel under the weather,” said Pedzisai.
The former gold panner plans on taking up poultry farming as soon as he is well enough to cater for himself.
“I will not go back to Munyati, I had built fowl runs at my homestead and I am going to sell one or two beasts and try my hand at chicken rearing,” said Pedzisai.
“I am also going to ask my wife to come back since I am the one who wronged her. If she forgives me, then I will begin life on a new chapter and ask her to take tests too. That is my primary concern right now, I pray she did not get infected, if she did and is willing to keep the family intact, I am glad. If she feels she needs to leave irrespective of her HIV status, then I will have to live with it,” said Pedzisai.
Seeing Pedzisai for the first time as I did, one would think that guy is in bad shape. As one converses with him, only then do you realise that he is ‘back from the dead’ and is not letting any chance slip out of his hands again.
TB-HIV, co-infection is the leading cause of death in people living positively.
Over 70 percent of patients presenting with TB in hospitals are found to be HIV positive. too.
Why the co-infection?
When one loses immunity, the body becomes weak and is prone to opportunistic infections (OI).
TB, being an OI, wreaks havoc on a weak immune system and TB becomes one of the first indicators of a compromised immune system.
One should not wait to have this presenting as knowing one’s status makes a world of a difference.
Not all HIV positive people get TB, but when the immune system keeps getting a knock, it opens the floodgates to poor health and TB ravages one’s health.

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