BEIRUT: On the occasion of World AIDS Day Thursday, campaigners across Lebanon are working to combat the stigma and discrimination often experienced by those living with HIV or AIDS. There have been 109 new reported cases of HIV and AIDS in Lebanon since November 2010, bringing the cumulative total to 1,455 cases, according to new statistics from the National AIDS Control Program.

However experts warn that the total is likely much higher, with the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS estimating a real figure around 3,600, or anywhere between 2,700 and 4,800.

Many cases go unreported due to the stigma and discrimination surrounding the HIV virus, leading either to being unaware of the symptoms or a reticence to register as being HIV positive, according to Carla Daher, the national coordinator for Y-Peer, a youth sexual health awareness network falling under the U.N. population body, the UNFPA.

“There is a lot of underreporting in Lebanon due to stigma and discrimination,” Daher says.

This stems from “a mix of ignorance of the symptoms, or someone gets the virus but they could request anonymity,” she said, choosing not to report their positive status, as “they might fear discrimination from [a] university or their workplace.”

As such, the Y-Peer network and the UNFPA have launched the “Let’s Talk” campaign, encouraging young Lebanese to discuss issues relating to HIV and AIDS.

Promising “100 percent anonymity and 0 percent discrimination,” the campaign urges people to get tested for HIV, at one of the 21 centers across Lebanon where testing is free, anonymous and voluntary.

Marianne Elias, project officer at NAP, agrees that the disease’s “stigma is the major factor hindering people from getting tested.”

“We’re trying to decrease discrimination across all levels of society,” she adds, so that people are less afraid to confront the issue and get tested.

While most people in Lebanon are now aware of the existence of HIV and AIDS, many are still afraid to meet someone with the virus, due to misconceptions over its transmission, according to Charbel Maydaa, executive director of Helem, a gay rights organization which works with the issues of sexual health and awareness.

Helem is therefore “concentrating on the stigma and discrimination affecting these people and their rights to live as equals with everyone else.”

This year Helem is conducting discussions on the issue, and distributing condoms and red AIDS ribbons throughout Beirut.

Discrimination against people living with HIV or AIDS can manifest itself in several ways, according to Maydaa.

Firstly, Maydaa says, PLHIV in Lebanon may experience discrimination from their own family members.

“Everything related to sex here is a taboo so they don’t want to talk about it and they don’t want to know about it,” he says.

Certain Lebanese television channels, in Maydaa’s view, contribute to this chasm between the reality of the virus and other people’s attitudes toward HIV positive people.

“Often when the issue is tackled on TV, they blur out the faces of people who are HIV positive,” Maydaa says.

“So people are often afraid of it, and so I do understand this reaction from the family.”

At Marsa, Helem’s sister sexual health clinic in the Beirut neighborhood of Clemenceau counseling is offered both to those with HIV or AIDS, and their relatives.

In the public sphere, those with HIV or AIDS might face discrimination in their workplace, Maydaa says, citing many cases of Lebanese who have lost their jobs once their employer discovered their health status.

There is no known cure for HIV or AIDS, but while a positive diagnosis was once considered a fatal one, medical professionals now refer to HIV and AIDS as chronic conditions. With the right medical attention and health choices it can be a manageable condition, and yet it still holds a certain status among other chronic illnesses in many people’s minds.

In NAP’s latest statistics, the majority of cases were transmitted via sexual relations, (51 percent, with 47 percent of cases not specified, 1 percent stemming from intravenous drug use and a further 1 percent from a blood transfusion, conducted outside of Lebanon), and Maydaa believes this element leads to the pervasive stigma surrounding HIV and AIDS.

“It has a special status because it’s related to sex,” he says, adding that this attitude “comes from a lack of understanding and awareness: a lack of talking about sex, about sexual behavior and gender identity.”

Johnny Tohme, a psycho-social officer at Marsa, believes many in Lebanon see a dichotomy between “good” and “bad” sex. There is a common belief, he says, that “‘bad’ sex will lead you to an infection, and ‘good’ sex will lead you to a family and kids.”

If someone openly declares himself or herself to be HIV positive, others may automatically assume they are homosexual or that they are a sex worker, Tohme says. Of the new cases in 2011, 93 percent were male.

Greater access to information on sexual health is needed, experts agree, so that young people have accurate facts on the transmission and prevention of HIV and AIDS.

“Information must be provided to young people, and from a young age,” Daher from Y-Peer says.

The absence of information on sexual health issues in school leads many young people to look for facts elsewhere, much of which might be unreliable, she adds.

“This misinformation then actually increases the risk of contracting HIV or AIDS, or any STI.”

Maydaa, at Helem, would also like to see a recognition of the rights of PLHIV and AIDS in the Lebanese law.

Yemen is currently the only country in the region to bring in an anti-discrimination law against people with HIV or AIDS, but it has not been overly successful, Maydar says, due to its abrupt introduction.

The current approach by sexual rights campaigners in Lebanon, working gradually to end discrimination, Maydar says, is more fitting for an eventual introduction of a law forbidding employers from discriminating or firing on the basis of HIV status.

“Working within the society itself is very important at first. But you come to a point where working at the societal level is no longer enough. Lebanon is nearly at that point, and we need a law that protects PLHIV and their right to work.”