CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AlertNet) – Babalwa Tembani is proof that the myths surrounding AIDS can be as deadly as the epidemic itself. When she was 14, she was raped by an uncle who thought he could cure himself of the disease by having sex with a virgin.

The crime left Babalwa, now 21, HIV-positive and dependent on antiretroviral AIDS drugs to prolong her life.

The myth that sex with a virgin is a cure for HIV/AIDS is one of many that make the fight against an epidemic that has struck 40 million people worldwide -- nearly two-thirds of them in sub-Saharan Africa -- even more difficult.

South African-based health workers and researchers point to other myths that undermine efforts to encourage condom use, one of the key planks in public health campaigns to promote safer sex.

These include the belief that condoms have been deliberately infected with the virus by foreign governments or aid organisations or even African governments intent on killing their own people.

Researchers also point to myths that AIDS is caused by witchcraft and HIV is transmitted by touch, both of which fuel the stigma and ignorance surrounding the disease.

But perhaps the biggest myth remains the belief that AIDS can be cured or that it always happens to someone else.

Sandra Manuel, a postgraduate researcher at the University of Cape Town, has spent time with schoolchildren in neighbouring Mozambique and came across deep-set suspicions and myths surrounding condom use.

"They thought some of the free condoms were already infected by foreign countries wanting to kill Africans,” Manuel said.

"The myths are very powerful but they believe them. They also think it’s a disease of their parents’ generation, that it is a white, foreign disease or that there are some kind of pills that can protect you.”

DANGEROUS IGNORANCE

The belief that HIV/AIDS is a problem limited to drug users and homosexual men is also common.

A survey of 260 African truck drivers showed that over a third of respondents believed that sleeping with a virgin could cure the disease, putting girls and young women at great risk.

These are obstacles that still urgently need to be overcome in sub-Saharan Africa, the epicentre of the global AIDS epidemic.

The myth surrounding the rape of virgins as a cure has been investigated by a joint study by the Nelson Mandela Foundation and South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council.

The study found that about a quarter of 12 to 14-year-olds questioned thought that sex with a virgin cured AIDS, or at least were unsure if this were true or not, although this fell to just over 10 percent in 15 to 24-year-olds.

About 20 percent of those over 50 agreed sex with a virgin would cure a person or did not know.

“This seems to indicate that when people have more knowledge and information about HIV/AIDS the beliefs in myths is diminished,” said Richard Delate, a former UNAIDS worker and now a private consultant.

“Therefore, efforts need to be maintained to provide people with accurate information regarding HIV/AIDS and to dispel the myths as they arise.”

That is what South Africa’s Love Life group (www.lovelife.org.za) aims to do by educating young people about the disease and sexual health matters.

Love Life carries the message that young people in South Africa have a greater probability of getting HIV than young people anywhere else in the world, and that more than half of today’s teenagers will have HIV before they are 25 if they do not practice safe sex.

One of the myths they have to contend with is the belief that the virus can pass through condom latex or that it is confined to one race, white or black.

MORE EDUCATION

The need to continually educate and inform is taken up by South Africa’s leading HIV/AIDS activist group, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) (www.tac.org.za).

“Our big campaign must be now to educate the public on treatment, prevention and the science,” TAC spokesman Naffan Geffen said.

TAC has led a successful public and legal campaign to force the Pretoria government to allow key AIDS medicines in the public health system.

From this year, life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs will be made available to some of the country’s estimated five million people who are living with HIV. South Africa has more HIV-positive people than any other country.

But the desperation of people with the disease with no immediate hope of drugs or proper treatment has led to endless potions and fake remedies being marketed up and down the country.

The least harmful of these turn out to be little more than vitamin supplements or weight-gain products. The worst are dangerous concoctions of poisons.

“People are being taken for a ride on snake oils that offer nothing but a placebo effect,” Geffen said.