Lulekwa Dlelaphantsi Nombasa Gxuluwe

South Africa

We provide education in clinics, in churches, and schools. We do the virology; looking at the scientific study of the virus itself. We look at the life cycle of the virus. We look at the body and study the cells, the tissues, the organs, that make up the person. Then we look at the OIs (opportunistic infections). We look at what is happening to the body when a person has shingles. Then we look at the treatments that are available in the public health settings.

We use songs to mobilise people, so they know what is happening. Songs can deal with the politics within the HIV sphere. Educational songs deal with shingles, TB – different types of TB. If it is in the head, we point to the head while we are singing.

Here are three songs that we sing in English:

“You better change your mind. You better condomise.” – “You do PMTCT where you are. You do PCR where you are.” – “All over, the world is talking about antiretrovirals.”

In dealing with the HIV lifecycle, we do the scientific explanation, then we have the participants act out what is happening in the human body.

We try to simplify the scientific terms so as to reach the masses of people, who are mostly illiterate.

We refer to the immune system as the soldiers of the body. What is the role that the soldiers play in the body in protecting you from the invaders? Here comes HIV. Now the soldiers of the body can’t function properly anymore. Other people use the example of a football team to show how the virus operates in the body.

We talk about the proteins as the building blocks or bricks used to build other parts of the body. Instead of saying the gp120, we say “the key that opens the lock” so that the virus can come inside the house.

People act out the parts of human cell and the virus. When the gp120 meets the human cell, the cell opens and the three enzymes and the RNA enter the human cell.

RT (reverse transcriptase) attaches to the nucleotides and changes the RNA into viral DNA. It must be double stranded. Then integrase enters the nucleus. It puts the viral DNA into the human DNA.

Then the nucleus does its work, which starts to manufacture more proteins and more viruses. They come out as a chain of proteins. Then the protease is waiting to cut the chains so the new virus can go off with part of the cell membrane.