Every year, December 1 marks World AIDS Day. For Nicolas, 32, this fight takes on its full meaning. Affected by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) for 11 years, he leads, through his association, a fight against serophobia. He tells us his story.
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Habib Hadjazi
“I was lucky to have a doctor who could have had the right words”. Nicolas was 21 when he was infected with HIV. The symptoms appeared while he was a student in Montreal and was urgently repatriated to France where the diagnosis was made. “I understood that I was going to have a normal life expectancy and that the treatments were working well” he remembers.
HIV is the human immunodeficiency virus, it is the virus that attacks the immune system. AIDS is acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, it is the terminal stage of HIV where the virus has attacked the immune system so much that we can no longer protect ourselves against the surrounding infections.
The hardest part for him was not to assume it. Some time after his return to France, he decides to say it publicly on social networks. “I refused to be ashamed and I refused to remain in silence”, he specifies. After this announcement, Nicolas did not suspect the negative repercussions that this would generate.
“I have people who have disappeared, there are people who insulted me, I had death threats, I was called a dirty AIDSwoman and at the time, I was 21 years old” .
The fight of a lifetime
This year, Nicolas launched his association “Supersero” whose objective is to fight against serophobia through a de-stigmatization of seropositivity and a fight against all forms of discrimination faced by seropositive people. “I have the impression that it did not exist. That is, there was no place where people with HIV or people who felt affected by the cause could come together to fight against serophobia. ”
“We’ve been fighting HIV for 30 years, supposedly, but we exclude people with HIV. We tell people not to get HIV, but as soon as someone has it, we put it on. side and we discriminate. It does not make sense “.
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