Chaps Interview

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I’m here with a alive and bubbly every kept tenfold that I have talked a little bit with before this interview started.

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Erica is a international development expert at Chaps, which stands for the Center for Age Prevention Studies. And I got very curious about your organization recap because you will take an interest in you, and that means that you are a very efficient organization at preventing suffering and promoting health. So, hey, welcome.

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Hi. Thank you so much. Thank you for reaching out to us. That’s really cool.

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And thank you for taking this into you.

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Now, if you were to explain, chaps, the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies to someone that is not aware of your costs, maybe some white male living in a country far away like Sweden. How would you how would you put this?

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So very simply, the Center for HIV AIDS Prevention Studies is all in the title. We look into. Better methods to preventing the spread of the HIV virus. And we look at better ways of communicating to people how they should be still testing to know their HIV status. And we do a lot of research into ways that can stop the spread of HIV. So our main project for that, which is the reason why Chep started, was looking at voluntary medical male circumcision, which is an HIV prevention method that is shown to be extremely effective at curbing the spread of HIV in a largely heterosexual males and homosexual males or men who have sex with men.

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I read about that. And I got so curious, why would a circumcision reduce the infection rate of age 8?

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So it’s tricky. I start before that. Could you explain this to someone that is not aware of what is the difference between AIDS and HIV?

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So HIV is the virus, the human immunodeficiency virus. AIDS is the actual disease that the virus turns into, which is acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. So if you have HIV, that will develop into full blown AIDS. If you don’t take what is known as your antiretrovirals or your antiretroviral treatment, which effectively reverses the spread of the virus and stops it before it turns into what is known as AIDS or the syndrome or the disease, if you will. Yeah, I’d like a picture board up. I can like draw pictures.

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And I think there’s actors. I think this is crystal clear to me. So let’s move on. Why would a circumcision reduced infection rates?

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So it’s unlike a technical expert. So in the foreskin, there are a lot of cells that are very open to trust. The viral transmission. So very kind of receptive to the transmission of the virus. The called Langerhans cells.

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And by removing the foreskin, that removes the potential for infection into those cells. Basically, you would like very simplistically put would have to like direct you to the website where there is a diagram and there’s like a very scientific explanation. But basically, removing the foreskin equals decreased transmission. Put it that way. OK.

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And what is chaps doing here? Are you researching on how big are the benefits of this or what do you want to do? What is your main purpose?

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So we’re actually so Jepsen’s CHEP started out as primarily doing the circumcisions as a way to prevent the increased transmission of the virus. We’ve been so successful in doing that in the past 10 years. We’ve established clinics and outreach and programs that we’ve informed government policy on it.

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So we are moving out into other areas at the moment. So we’re doing a lot of HIV testing. We do a lot of training. We do training and testing. We do training for people who want to do vmc. So that was Chelsea’s initial mandate. It started out in 2005, was a research project testing the effectiveness of vitamin C. And we’ve kind of grown from there like chaps who’s become synonymous with HIV prevention as we’ve grown from doing vmc to HIV prevention and in a kind of broader sense now. So it’s been helped by maths like 14 years.

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Wow. And so for someone like me that is quite unaware of this problem, how how big is the HIV problem these days compared to maybe 10 years ago? What is happening?

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Oh, so Africa is a complicated story. Overall, transmission has decreased, but at the same time, infections. Continued. So people are continually they are infections that occur every single day. So in South Africa, the rate of HIV is one of the highest in the world. Which is why programs like like we do for chaps. That’s why they still continue to be so important, because as much as we’ve fought very hard to get people in our country onto a ARV’s and to get them testing and treating. Still a problem still exists, you know. So the government has started a program called We Are the Generation that will end HIV with the intention of stopping HIV transmission in its entirety eventually. Well, but yeah, it’s it’s a big one.

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Like, do you think that can happen? How probable is that?

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Look, I am an optimist and I think it can happen.

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But this is exactly why we need to talk to people overseas. We need to continue to talk to people in South Africa. We need to continue working on HIV prevention constantly. Otherwise we’re not going to. So organizations like Chaps, the work we do, we have to keep fighting because otherwise we will not end the spread of HIV. It will continue. And as much as it is a chronic controllable disease. Now, if you take your ARV’s, that’s no excuse for the virus to continue to spread. Knowing that the danger it can put you in if you don’t have treatment or if you don’t want to test if you want to stay. Ignorance of your HIV status.

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I’d like to find a new way to speak about this cause. Now, what do you think? Someone overseas like me? What do you think? They don’t know about your cause, but that you would like for them to know.

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I think what would be most important to know is that HIV AIDS in South Africa is still a concern. It still needs support from people overseas. We have a lot of programs and projects that still need support from people that still need funding, like donations are huge. We’re running a program at the moment that asks people to donate for something called a playbox, which is providing access to your Avi’s, if you will, your chronic medication by opening a lucka like using a locker pad just to open that to try and get funding for that is really difficult because there are so many programs in South Africa that require the same kind of support because we are as much as we’re like classified to be a middle income country. The poverty divide is huge. It’s huge. You have people living in palaces and then you have people living down the road in bare poverty. So support from the international community is critical for us. So for the example that I was talking about, the playbox initiative, it’s a global giving campaign that we’ve set up and we’ve been asking people for the price of a cup of coffee in the US, which is not yet because the exchange rate is already met.

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May I come back to that? Because I want to talk about how people can help you towards the end.

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Leave. Leave them with that. So first I would like to know. Oh, and by the way, when I was in South Africa, I was shocked by how divided it was. I was in Johannesburg and the difference between the city and in one of these shake shack towns. Yeah, yeah. I was awful. Shoot. Yeah. So even if you’re a middle income, you’re very polarized for sure.

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So would you tell me about what kind of successes have you had so far with your organization? What project are you most proud of?

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Definitely.

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Al vmc program that’s we’ve had the biggest amount of success was what the sun indices done for our volunteers. Male circumcision, voluntary medical, male circumcision.

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Yes. So basically encouraging men who are not circumcised and who are willing to actively want to prevent themselves against the transmission of HIV to get circumcised.

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That’s when our biggest, most we’ve had astounding success with that. And we have an established, established presence with that program. People know who chaps, all because of that program.

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What kind of success are we talking about?

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I’d have to talk numbers and I don’t have the numbers of hands if you’d just give me two seconds on the website. Oh, wait, no, no, no. The. I just designed this Web site. I should know that. Please don’t put this in the record. Please get this board out. I’ve just been designing the website and I don’t even know the numbers.

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So we’ve had phenomenal success. We have a. In the 10 years that we’ve been in existence, we’ve performed six hundred thirty nine thousand circumcisions, we have tested over 84000 people, and we’ve established ourselves in pretty much every province in the country, we’ve got nine provinces. That’s huge. I mean, it’s a population of like fifty five million. And providing that access also in clinics in much poorer areas, as you say, like in the townships, giving people access to a clinic that could potentially save their lives. I think it’s pretty big. Like, I think Chayefsky’s really done a good job. And I’m not just saying next. I work for chaps. I think that the work we have done is phenomenal and to keep fighting, to want to do that, whereas so many people kind of, you know, HIV messaging, it’s over. We are not giving up this fight. You know, we’re saying with our programs, we’re not giving up this fight. We’re not letting HIV just continue to spread through the country.

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We want to stop this and has had a role in doing that. So from its start as a research project in 2005 until 2019.

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That’s a hell of a lot of lives saved and a lot of infections prevent that indirectly. Well, I think I guess how big do you think that effect is compared to the direct person you are preventing with a circumcision because that person would have sex with at least a couple of more people?

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Well, so it’s it’s they also need to be aware of the fact that they should still use a condom and they need to be aware of like risky behavior. You know, like I mean, you’ve got to be blunt here. Like, don’t go and have sex the perfect stranger after you’ve had a few drinks in a bar. You know, you can have had your circumcision, but you still need to be careful. It’s like anywhere in the world. You know, you don’t just kind of have sex with whoever. You have to know who you’re engaging with. And I mean, I think that’s the risk is that HIV prevention is such. The messaging is there. You know, you can take prep, you can do a vmc. You can get tested. You can use a condom. But if you continue to engage in risky behavior, you’re kind of shooting yourself in the foot. And this is way like this is where, chaps, his education program is so important that we want to educate people that you have to still be away. You have to walk in with your eyes open as you live and breathe, you know?

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Mm hmm. Got it. What is the risk for a heterosexual man compared to homosexual men to get infected?

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So key populations. The U.N. AIDS brought out the most recent stats on the 5th of November.

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What do you mean by key populations? Because I wasn’t really aware of that term, so I want to clarify it.

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So key populations are people who are at higher risk of HIV transmission. So that would be. So the U.N. just brought out stats, which is actually really interesting. I actually want to read them to you because I’ve got a tab open here.

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There’s such a nerd.

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Ok, so you’re an AIDS considers gay men and other men who have sex with men, sex workers, transgender people, people who inject drugs and prisoners as the five main key populations group that are particularly vulnerable to HIV and lack adequate access to services. So health care and prevention services. So homosexual men and men who have sex with men are they have accounted for while key populations have accounted for 80 percent of new HIV infections, which is a lot. And for men who have sex with men, it’s about the risk is 22 percent higher than any other population because of risky behavior. You know, like there’s a whole culture behind that. There’s a whole dynamic behind that. But the risk of HIV transmission is higher.

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And it’s not because homosexual men. I’ve read somewhere that they’re more sexual partners or is it because they way to have sex? So what is the reason that they are key?

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I mean, this there’s so many factors involved. I would have you here for longer than 20 minutes, but basically it’s the mode of transmission. Of the virus is holiday kind of thing. Hi, Paul. They have six, if you will. There’s also like a lot of in a lot of different cultures and a lot of different kind of gay cultures, if you will. There’s like a lot of risky behavior, like there’s a lot of drug taking is a lot of alcohol involved. It depends on where and who. I mean, you can’t Tyburn with the same kind of brush, but the lifestyle risk can be considerably higher. And also the thinking is that, you know, HIV is not such a scary bear anymore. You know, it’s like it’s treatable. I can take Elvis again. This

is not the point. This is not what we want. We want people to not get sick at all. It’s like saying, well, I’m going to walk outside in a snowstorm in my costume because all I could get sick. But, you know, I might not be the same kind of thinking. You know, you wouldn’t go outside in the snow in a swimsuit. Why would you have sex without a condom? If it was somebody that you weren’t aware of their status?

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Yeah. I want to put the focus back on Chop’s cause you talked about a successful project that you had the circumcision program. What would be something great that could happen for you in as year or five years?

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So we have a three at project prediction if we could expand our chaps programming to the rest of southern Africa.

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They are established vmc programs in other countries, but because of chaps the successes in South Africa, we could take the same kind of model and expand it to the rest of southern Africa. Also thinking big here to Western Africa and eastern Africa because we’ve got a particularly good model that works. If we can work hand-in-hand with other departments of health in other countries and other programs to keep getting people to circumcise. And then along with that, to expand into other sort of other areas of HFA HIV prevention, as well as expanding testing, expanding access to prep, expanding and key populations programs because of the risk in key populations. Programs like if we could do that by 2022, I think we say we’d be doing a pretty damn good job.

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Gotcha. So spread out more for more people. Now we’re coming up towards the end here. I had a lot of fun. I wish you could talk for two more hours. But the most important thing is what can someone do if they want to get involved or spread your message?

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What would be important for you getting involved would be donating inserts. Link here, contribute to our program here and getting involved would be following us on Twitter, Facebook, sharing the kind of content that we share. Just having a general awareness, making that conversation bigger. So taking the conversation outside of South Africa and taking it to Sweden, you know, like like having that kind of did you know in South Africa there is a BAMC program. What does that even mean? You know, having that kind of conversation that can dominate globally means that there is increased attention on what is still happening in poorer countries. You know, it is still happening. HIV is still a problem. We need people to talk about it, to be aware of it, to engage with it, to share that kind of messaging. Also, take an interest in our country, you know, come and volunteer. I’m here on a holiday exchange rate is favorable. It’s about 17 rand, 17 rand to the euro. It’s very cheap for you to come here, come and volunteer, come and see what happens in the poorer areas. The more exposure and attention that we get to our causes, the more success that we have in changing people’s lives and making sure that we can end. The transmission of HIV has stopped people getting sick.

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Hold your fire is contagious. I’m almost I’m getting hot over here. This has been so much fun. I’m so grateful that you never.

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I’m so grateful that you wanted to be a part of this. Thank you so much for your energy and your charisma. And I wish you all the best with your cause.

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Thank you so much. I really appreciate the chance to talk to you about it. It’s amazing. Mm hmm. Have a great day. Thank you. Hi.