BootsnAll Travel Community

I am writing this post to serve as a warning. I am not trying to scare anyone here, though. I am a doctor working in Cape Town at one of its major hospitals. Recently we had a young German traveller, barely past her teens, who was hospitalised with a severe illness. Among her multitude of infectious disease-related medical problems, we also discovered she was HIV positive. She had only been in the country for about 3 months and while here had started a relationship with a local, and she admitted to having had unprotected sex on occasion with him. We discovered he was also HIV positive.

I have seen a lot of HIV here, and it is mainly confined to the black african and to a lesser degree the 'coloured' population. It is relatively rare to see a white person, let alone a young woman from Germany, with the disease. The case highlighted the fact that HIV absolutely does not discriminate between race, colour or nationality, and hit home quite hard with many of the staff involved in treating her, for many reasons. The girl's prognosis is doubtful- she is probably going to die.

This is just to serve as a warning to travellers that the risk of contracting HIV here is _far_ higher than in Europe, Australia or the States. Cape Town is a wonderful place to visit with loads to see and do, but please do not _ever_ forget to use protection when you have sex.