Church ex-fiance and I attended required us to test for HIV, ex dumped me when he learned my status, shares Duba
IN 2000, Duba Sakala was engaged to get married to her now ex-fiance, who after getting tested in 2001, vanished from her life, leaving their plans to one day get married, crumbling.
Duba, who has lived with HIV for 25 years recollects how she and her ex-fiance visited an HIV testing centre in 2001, and narrates the anxiety the couple bore waiting for results.
Speaking when she featured on My Story Podcast monitored by TV Yatu, Duba shares that the counselor that attended to them shared the couple’s HIV test results individually.
“I read my results, and they said reactive, and I knew what reactive meant. He read his results and they read, non-reactive. He looked at me and I am sure he could tell from the look of my face, that my results was not what I expected,” she shares.
Duba narrates that, after it was clear to him that they had read their results, their counselor asked if they could exchange their results slips.
“I was okay with it because this was somebody I was going to get married to. So I gave him my results, he gave me his results,” she narrates.
She says when he read her results, he quickly gave her a hug.
“He gave me a hug and said it will be okay,” she shares.
She further narrates that after they had the HIV testing centre, her now ex-fiance walked her to his home where according to her reality of her testing positive struck and she broke down.
“He was in the kitchen and I think he heard me sobbing and he came. And he started comforting me and told me, don’t worry I will walk through this with you, I am not going to leave you, I am still going to go ahead and marry you,” Duba shares.
She says according to that Church’s practice, since it asked them to test for HIV, the couple needed to get back to it and inform them of the outcome of the test.
Duba says after discussing the matter with her partner, she resolved to share the outcome with their marriage counselors and not their relatives.
In sharing her story, Duba delves deep and takes viewers to when she nursed the mother and had tuberculosis.
“Little did I know that it was HIV related,” she shares.
She says while preparing for her bridal shower, tuberculosis recurred and that when she visited the hospital, the doctor advised that he would only put her on medication after the event had past cautioning that, if he put her on medication there and then, the medication would make her weak.
“So, the problem now started during the bridal shower. I was unwell and I was weak…so, family to the man came to the bridal shower and they noticed that I was unwell…and we had kept this between us and we had not told our families,” Duba recollects.
She says after the bridal shower, her ex-fiance’s family dragged him aside and asked if we had tested for HIV because of how I appeared on the day of the event.
She says the man declined ever undergoing an HIV test with her because they had agreed to keep the results between them.
She recollects how they insisted that their relative drags Duba to get tested for HIV as she did not look healthy.
She narrates that shortly after he had a meeting with his relatives, he briefed her of what they had discussed.
Duba recollects resolving to sharing her HIV status with her family, and asked her ex-fiance to go ahead and share with his family.
She painfully narrates that, at that time, her family had already lost a number of family members from AIDS.
According to her, her family was very understanding and said that it could happen to anyone.
Duba recollects that, around this time, HIV medication was not dispensensed for free.
She says the problem started when her ex-fiance told his relatives about her HIV status.
According to her, his family alleged that she was on plan to willfully infect their relative whom she had not had sex with at the time.
“I equally did not know I was HIV positive despite having had tuberculosis in 1998. I had no idea it was HIV related. I thought it was because of the bronchitis I had as a child and that’s the reason I ended up developing tuberculosis,” Duba shares that when he told them, they vehemently told him he was not going to be allowed to marry her.
She shares that when he mentioned all this to her, they discussed how that were to approach the matter.
According to her, he told her that he was going to allow her to complete her tuberculosis treatment, which was a relapse and was expected to take about eight months.
He told her that he would only marry her after she was done with her tuberculosis treatment that was a year after.
She shares that during the period she took tuberculosis medication, communication began dying down.
After she was done with her medication, Duba says she informed the man, who she says appeared to have grown cold feet over his promise to marry her.
She says he still assured her he would marry her.
She says when he visited Lusaka, she removed engagement ring and put it back in the box it came with and asked him to put it back if it belong on her finger.
“And he got the box. To me that was a sign that he was coming to call off the engagement,” she says.
She narrates that a meeting was held and his relatives informed her relatives that after she tested positive for HIV, their son had decided not to go ahead with the wedding.
Duba Sakala is an HIV advocate and uses social media to encourage people to accept their status while adhering to rules on taking HIV treatment. Duba us also a fitness enthusiaste.
©️ TV Yatu March 19, 2026.