An elderly couple (who also happen to be relatives) came over to my house a few days ago to visit my mother. They thought my mother had already undergone her knee operation and so they thought they’d come by to see how she was doing.
Anyway, we got to chat from one topic to another. Somehow the topic of handling dead bodies of the HIV infected came into the picture. I can’t quite recall how the topic came about in our conversation, but this man is a former imam and used to be the person people would call to help bathe the bodies of male Muslims, although he had never handled any HIV infected bodies before (well, at least not that he knew of lah…).
He mentioned how a friend of his had to “pakai macam orang nak pergi ke bulan” when bathing the body of an HIV infected person. (I am imagining this Pak Imam wearing something like what Sheikh Muszaphar wore… I bet he can hardly move!) When I told him there was no such need, he said, “Eh idak… ni yang ada AIDS. AIDS dengan HIV tu berbeza.”
Obviously he thought this “budak berhingus yang baru dua tiga kali mandikan jenazah” didn’t even know the difference between AIDS and HIV. Well, I don’t go around telling people that I'm involved in HIV/AIDS voluntary work (except maybe in this blog) so he probably thought I’m just as ignorant as so many other people.
I did try to tell him what I knew, but nope, he didn’t buy it. Can’t really blame him, he would rather believe the friend who actually bathed the body of an HIV infected person before. He even said, “Lepas tu nanti masa kebumi tu, kena tabur dulu klorin dalam kubur tu!”
No point telling him about how HIV actually spreads, about it not being air borne, etc. I guess for awareness programmes, we’d have to concentrate on the younger generation. For people like this Pak Imam, all the misconceptions about HIV/AIDS are already etched in their minds.
So I thought today I’d just write about a few basic things in the handling of HIV infected bodies, particularly Muslims, based on the guidelines from the health aspect provided by Cawangan AIDS/STD, Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia, with the cooperation of JAKIM.
Latex gloves need to be worn whether you are handling a normal or an HIV infected body. No difference there. Masks, plastic apron and rubber boots is not a must but encouraged for BOTH normal and infected bodies. The only difference is that a little bit of bleach (like Clorox) is to be added to the first round of water poured over the body. The purpose? When bleach (which contains Sodium Hypochloride) is added to water, chlorine is produced and this would kill the virus. This is actually just a precaution, particularly for bodies with skin diseases – HIV doesn’t live outside of the human body anyway.
As for precautions to be taken after handling the bodies (like cleaning up yourself etc after everything's done), basically the same precautions need to be taken after handling both infected and non-infected bodies. Besides, how can we be so sure the body we’re handling is not infected? Maybe the person him/herself never knew he/she was infected, right?
So no, you don’t have to wear something “macam orang nak pergi ke bulan”! (I kinda like the phrase though…)
As for the need of pouring chlorine inside the grave, the answer is a clear no. So the guy who actually poured chlorine inside the grave was probably just paranoid.
Maybe the requirements are different if we’re dealing with air borne infectious diseases like SARS and the likes. Probably for these cases, they don't even allow to bring the body back home. But since I don’t know much about the other infectious diseases, I shall not go into that…
Anyway, we got to chat from one topic to another. Somehow the topic of handling dead bodies of the HIV infected came into the picture. I can’t quite recall how the topic came about in our conversation, but this man is a former imam and used to be the person people would call to help bathe the bodies of male Muslims, although he had never handled any HIV infected bodies before (well, at least not that he knew of lah…).
He mentioned how a friend of his had to “pakai macam orang nak pergi ke bulan” when bathing the body of an HIV infected person. (I am imagining this Pak Imam wearing something like what Sheikh Muszaphar wore… I bet he can hardly move!) When I told him there was no such need, he said, “Eh idak… ni yang ada AIDS. AIDS dengan HIV tu berbeza.”
Obviously he thought this “budak berhingus yang baru dua tiga kali mandikan jenazah” didn’t even know the difference between AIDS and HIV. Well, I don’t go around telling people that I'm involved in HIV/AIDS voluntary work (except maybe in this blog) so he probably thought I’m just as ignorant as so many other people.
I did try to tell him what I knew, but nope, he didn’t buy it. Can’t really blame him, he would rather believe the friend who actually bathed the body of an HIV infected person before. He even said, “Lepas tu nanti masa kebumi tu, kena tabur dulu klorin dalam kubur tu!”
No point telling him about how HIV actually spreads, about it not being air borne, etc. I guess for awareness programmes, we’d have to concentrate on the younger generation. For people like this Pak Imam, all the misconceptions about HIV/AIDS are already etched in their minds.
So I thought today I’d just write about a few basic things in the handling of HIV infected bodies, particularly Muslims, based on the guidelines from the health aspect provided by Cawangan AIDS/STD, Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia, with the cooperation of JAKIM.
Latex gloves need to be worn whether you are handling a normal or an HIV infected body. No difference there. Masks, plastic apron and rubber boots is not a must but encouraged for BOTH normal and infected bodies. The only difference is that a little bit of bleach (like Clorox) is to be added to the first round of water poured over the body. The purpose? When bleach (which contains Sodium Hypochloride) is added to water, chlorine is produced and this would kill the virus. This is actually just a precaution, particularly for bodies with skin diseases – HIV doesn’t live outside of the human body anyway.
As for precautions to be taken after handling the bodies (like cleaning up yourself etc after everything's done), basically the same precautions need to be taken after handling both infected and non-infected bodies. Besides, how can we be so sure the body we’re handling is not infected? Maybe the person him/herself never knew he/she was infected, right?
So no, you don’t have to wear something “macam orang nak pergi ke bulan”! (I kinda like the phrase though…)
As for the need of pouring chlorine inside the grave, the answer is a clear no. So the guy who actually poured chlorine inside the grave was probably just paranoid.
Maybe the requirements are different if we’re dealing with air borne infectious diseases like SARS and the likes. Probably for these cases, they don't even allow to bring the body back home. But since I don’t know much about the other infectious diseases, I shall not go into that…
