The HIV/AIDS test before marriage

The advert started with a visitor to the bride, who asked about the marriage preparation. The bride answered that everything was in place, proudly showing her hands decorated with henna (lalle). Then the visitor asked about health tests, but the bride said the groom was very healthy. Again the visitor advised her about the importance […]

The advert started with a visitor to the bride, who asked about the marriage preparation. The bride answered that everything was in place, proudly showing her hands decorated with henna (lalle). Then the visitor asked about health tests, but the bride said the groom was very healthy. Again the visitor advised her about the importance of HIV test for intending couples.
The advert has brought many things to my mind, but more importantly the need for intending couples to go for HIV/AIDS test before marriage.
This is more so as many HIV positive people, especially men, marry HIV negative women without telling them their status.
I personally know of few such cases, where the husbands married the innocent girls, and the husbands were taking medication. But it was only when the illness manifested in the wives that the husbands reluctantly owned up to be the ones that infected them.
In fact one kept denying vehemently, telling the wife that she was afflicted by evil spirits and goaded by enemies, and even the HIV positive result was a lie. It was only on her death bed that he confessed to her and sought her forgiveness. But what for, after the anguish her parents and relatives had gone through in looking after her, and then losing her?
Another man whose wife died of the disease went and married two others and both were subsequently infected. One had babies that died after few months.
There are many such cases, only that people are not ready to say it, they hide it and it is usually at the very end that you hear of being married to HIV positive person without knowing.
To demand for HIV test before marriage is definitely upsetting, the automatic response is that you are accusing your loved one of being promiscuous, where he is supposed to be a bachelor and the girl in question a maiden.
Some that are guilty of being wayward would be in the defensive, accusing the one that asked for the HIV test for being suspicious, which may have a negative impact on the marriage, and on and on.
However, sooner or later we have to accept it , as many people are deliberately infected  without anything being done to them.
 In any case,   last month in Kano a 63- year-old Ubale  Sa’idu  was sentenced to death by stoning by an  Upper Shari’a Court for raping and infecting a young girl who was a primary six pupil  with HIV .
Ubale is said to be living with HIV for two years and his two wives died of the same virus in 2011 within six months interval.
 Delivering the judgment, Khadi Faruq Ahmed further ordered that N36 million be paid as compensation to the parents of the young girl if their daughter eventually dies.
Also last month in Kenya, one man,  Kennedy Okwako was sentenced to eight years in prison for infecting eight women with HIV, though many people were outraged, saying the sentence was too light. At least it  shows that you cannot do as you please and endanger the lives of others, just because you feel that you have nothing to lose.
Also in the US early this year, a former pastor was sentenced to ten years in prison for knowingly exposing female congregates to the HIV virus.
“This has been an ongoing nightmare,” McAfee (one of the victims) told Fox after sentencing. “I’ve woken up out of my sleep with anxiety, uncontrollable shakes, thinking that I was HIV positive.”
The response of the above victim says a lot of how innocent people feel after being infected by their supposedly loved ones, then the double nightmare where rape takes place.
 If HIV test before marriage helps to curb the disease, by all means let’s go for it.