What the Ebola Virus outbreak has shown us, those of us living in the heavily affected countries, is we face the same stigmatization and ostracization by the global community, particularly African nations, as do Ebola survival victims within our own borders.
Lipoatrophy looks very similar to AIDS wasting syndrome, termed "Slims disease" throughout Africa, and may confer the same stigmatization [ 1].
"And when they're somehow exposed to what we call push factors, like stigmatization, Islamophobia, racism, and at the same time, when they're being non-critical... and when they have social and familial issues, they can easily be recruited by radical groups".
At the same time, defining "disability" solely in terms of social responses like stigmatization and exclusion does not distinguish disability from race or sex (Bickenbach, 1993)—a result that some disability scholars might welcome, but that begs, or obscures, an important question.
So how can we provide for the public's safety while at the same refraining from the stigmatization of those suffering with mental illness (because, to be fair, research has made it clear that the vast majority of the mentally ill will never be violent)?
Criminalization and stigmatization of same sex practices limits the collection of these data providing the justification for the continued absence of research and programming for MSM [ 53, 54].
Furthermore, inviting all young people in one cluster at the same time will minimize stigmatization and prevent questions such as 'why me?'.
To ensure availability and use of services in light of the criminalization and stigmatization of same sex practices, there is need to increase the safety of uptake and provision of these services for MSM.
Public health professionals must understand the necessary balance needed to protect the public's health with appropriate exclusionary practices, while at the same time preventing fear, stigmatization, and discrimination of specific segments of the population.
More broadly, stigmatization of same sex practices has demonstrated negative impacts on coverage and quality of services for MSM, including HIV prevention campaigns and clinical guidelines that exclude homosexual and bisexual transmission risks, homoprejudiced attitudes in the health setting, and reluctance by MSM to utilize services or disclose sexual risks [ 26, 62, 63].
If these findings hold up, future anti-stigma campaigns need to improve self-stigmatization to the same extent as they are trying to reduce anticipated discrimination currently.
