| Jeanne Gapiya-Niyonzima | |
| Birth Date: | 12 July 1963 |
| Birth Place: | Bujumbura, Burundi |
| Occupation: | Human rights activist |
Jeanne Gapiya-Niyonzima (born 12 July 1963, in Bujumbura) is a human rights activist from Burundi. She is the chair and founder of the National Association for Support for HIV-Positive People with AIDS (ANSS) and was the first person from the country to publicly admit they had HIV.[1]
Gapiya-Niyonzima trained as an accountant initially, but found her first employment at a pharmacy in Burundi's capital city.[2]
In 1987, she married her husband and in 1988 when she was pregnant with her second child, her first child was diagnosed as HIV positive.[3] At her doctor's insistence her pregnancy was terminated and she was also diagnosed as HIV positive. Her first child died aged eighteen months; her husband died of AIDS soon after in 1989. In 1993 after the death of her sister and brother, she tested positive for HIV.[4]
In 1994, Gapiya-Niyonzima became the first person from Burundi to publicly declare that they were HIV positive.[5] This happened during a religious service, in which a sermon was delivered which stigmatised people with the disease.
In 1993, Gapiya-Niyonzima founded the National Association of Support for Seropositive and AIDS Patients (ANSS).[6] It was the first civil organisation in the country to provide support and treatment, including anti-retroviral therapy, for people with HIV and AIDS within the country. The ANSS promotes the prevention of the transmission of HIV/AIDS and provides support for those with the infection, however it was transmitted, and their families.[7]
In 1996, whilst Burundi was under a trade embargo, Gapiya-Niyonzima fought for the right of patients to continue to access medicines, which were being sold at exorbitant prices.[8] In 1999 she established the Turinho centre within the ANSS which provides overall support and care for those infected and affected.[9]
In April 2011 Gapiya-Niyonzima addressed the United Nations Committee for HIV/AIDS in New York City. Since 2013, with the support of UNITAID, the ANSS has run a laboratory which performs its own viral loads tests.[10] Between August 2014 and November 2016, the laboratory performed 14,800 HIV viral load tests for patients on anti-retrovirals. From 2013 to 2016, the ANSS performed 85% of the viral load tests carried out in Burundi.
In 2016, Gapiya-Niyonzima was re-elected as president of the ANSS by its General Assembly.[11] The ANSS had at that time 6,410 members, 5,114 of whom take antiretroviral medicines. She is also a board member for other NGOs active in anti-discrimination organisations, including Coalition Plus[12] and Sidaction.[13]
Gapiya-Niyonzima remarried in 1999 and she has two children.[17]