Senzo embraces his status after being infected with HIV at three-years-old

At the tender age of just three-years-old, Mr Senzo Nkomo, now 23, contracted HIV after playing at a dumpsite in Ermelo with friends.

However, he only found out about his HIV-status at the age of nine.

Senzo noticed a rash all over his body, which soon turned into blisters that began secreting liquid, this he said, was a real concern.

His grandmother and older brother took him to the clinic and within less than an hour, the results returned and indicated he was HIV-positive.

His mother died a month before his diagnosis and his father passed away two months before he was born, so he and his other two siblings were in his grandmother’s care.

“It came as a huge shock to her, I was going to be ‘married’ to Antiretrovirals (ARVs) for the rest of my life.”

“At first my family were puzzled and questioned how I could have contracted the virus, but my grandmother remembered me returning from the dumpsite crying.

“I apparently told her I had injected myself with a syringe when we were playing at the dumpsite, I cannot remember much of it being so young at the time,” he said.

“Being only nine, I was quite hesitant of more tests being carried out as I feared injections, fortunately, it wasn’t all that bad,” he recalled.

He told the Highvelder that he’s made peace with his status and has learned to be grateful of the fact that he’s still breathing.

“My life has completely changed, but I believe the Lord chose me as his ambassador and to change people’s view about HIV, because it tends to have a negative stigma attached to it.”

“People who are HIV-positive have low self esteem and we have to stop the discrimination against people who are infected with this virus”

Read the complete article in the Highvelder newspaper.