AIDS in Asia: The Human Face of HIV/AIDS

Millions of people in Asia suffer from HIV/AIDS, and millions more lives are affected. Mother to child transmission of the disease, usually after the man contracts AIDS from a sex worker and then transmits it to his wife, has produced children infected with the disease numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Families are torn apart and lives are ruined, all by a disease that could be controlled to high degree with simple education as well as proper medicine and medical facilities. One of the primary reasons for families to be thrust into poverty in the developing world is when one member becomes ill, especially if it's the bread winner of the family and they are infected with illnesses like HIV/AIDS.

As a photojournalist it is always difficult to photograph subject matter that you are closely emotionally tied to, yet that emotional tie also allows you a passion for the work and a sense of purpose in documenting it. Photographing people dying from AIDS—the same disease that I lost my father to—has been a personal mission of mine, mainly because I hope to create awareness that may save others from the pain of living with the disease, dying from it or losing a loved one to it.

When you know what it is like for someone to suffer through AIDS in the Western world, watching people suffer through it in the absolute worst of conditions is beyond difficult. To see people sleeping on hospital floors, coated in flies with barely enough energy to open their eyes to look at you, it is hard to bring the camera up to your face and shoot. But this is my job; it is what I have chosen to do and I have done so because I believe in the power of the still image to effect change.

This story was photographed between 2004 and 2005 and re-edited in 2009.

A man suffering from the advanced stages of AIDS lies in the infectious disease ward of a hospital in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

A woman comforts her terminally ill husband in the AIDS/TB ward of a hospital in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

An elderly man, emaciated by the effects of disease, sits on the hospital floor waiting for a nurse to attend to him.

An AIDS patient stands in line in front of a walk-in medical clinic wearing a mask over his face to prevent his fragile immune system from contracting illnesses from the dozens of other patients also waiting in line.

Shirtless in the baking heat, a man suffering from AIDS and waiting for treatment in a hospital is decorated with ornate Cambodian tattoos.

A man suffering from the advanced stages of AIDS lies in a bed with his rib cage exposed.

An elderly Vietnamese prostitute suffering from dementia brought on by AIDS cries in entry way to an AIDS care facility.

A prostitute living with AIDS in her brothel trying to earn money. With little or no education, many sex workers in Asia make around $0.50 (USD) per customer and then must pay half to their pimps and to the owners of the brothels. Many are forced to continue working while they are sick just to be able to afford to eat.

Two prostitutes, both living with AIDS, wait for customers outside of a brothel in a slum area of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Most sex workers enter the trade with no knowledge of AIDS, and customers, locals and sex tourists often pay extra money to have unprotected sex.

A woman suffers through a headache in the heat of an open-air AIDS hospital.

The AIDS wing of the infamous Russian Hospital in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Dilapidated, filthy and in disrepair, many AIDS hospitals are barely standing much less suitable places for people who are suffering to go to seek treatment.

An AIDS patient nearing death.

The walls of the AIDS ward in the Russian Hospital.

A man lies on a mat in an uncomfortable bed while seeking treatment for his disease.

Just hours before her death, an AIDS patient lies in bed in a hallway of the Russian Hospital.

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Comments

[Julia]

Your photos are lovely and real and quite beautiful in portraying the suffering this disease causes. As a nurse that has worked both in the best hospitals of the medical community and the smallest community hospitals in the impoverished and AIDS ravished countries of South Africa, these images are all too familiar.

I feel compelled to note, in criticism of your blog text, that a person is not "infected with AIDS". HIV, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, is the virus which is transmitted through contact with infectious blood, semen, vaginal fluids and breast milk. AIDS, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, is the diagnosis given to a person when their immune system is so compromised by their HIV infection that they become ill with one or more of any the 29 AIDS-defining illnesses. People become infected with HIV, which when untreated, then attacks their immune system to a point of deficiency that they then become ill and are diagnosed with AIDS. These may seem subtle but are important differences.

Thank you for your amazing work and for showing your subjects in such a realist, respectful manner.

[Zoriah]

Julia,
You are quite right, there was a mistake in one of the captions and I appreciate you pointing it out. I have made the correction.

[Jefferson L. Morriss]

Powerful images that strike a chord in my very being. The last image though is haunting. I hope that you will continue in your efforts to document this disease. Nicely captured Zoriah.

[Mohammed]

Dear all around the world:

I am a muslim, i would like to narrate the message according to Quran & Hadith as follows regarding AIDS/HIV.

Allah say Not to commit illegal sexual intercourse & whoever indulge, get the punishment in this world, that punishmnent will be an expiation for that sin.

Thank you
A. Mohammed