Brett Anderson never thought he had contracted HIV.

“I was as sick as a dog but I never thought of HIV despite having all the symptoms. It never crossed my mind. It simply wasn’t real to me. Now, it’s in my blood. It’s part of my life,” says the 28-year-old Capetonian.

A skin rash that Anderson developed last year, turned out to be a symptom of HIV and not spider bites as he initially thought.

A TV producer, Anderson sold his business after he found out that he was HIV positive.

“I needed a break to think about what I wanted to do.” Anderson says that at the time of his diagnosis, he knew no-one who had HIV, but he is frank about having contracted the virus through sex. “Suddenly, everything I saw and read was about the virus.”

But it was only when he told his mother that he finally broke down. “My life has changed completely since my diagnosis. Before my HIV test, I was lost, not knowing what life was all about.

“The test woke me up. Initially, I just thought ‘€˜When am I going to die?’€™ But now, there’s so much I want to do. You appreciate every day.”

Anderson says people find it very hard to believe that he is HIV infected.

“I’m not sick or dying, so it shocks everyone that I’ve got it,” he says.

He feels that people should be encouraged to go for HIV tests because testing for HIV suddenly makes HIV/AIDS, and the possibility that you might be infected, a reality.

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