The tragedy of Jonasi is not that he contracted HIV. It’s that he refused the treatment that would have let him live and stopped him from passing on the virus to others.

The show even blurs this, suggesting a person on treatment is still dangerously infectious. That is not true and spreading such false information feeds the very fear that keeps people away from getting tested for HIV and taking up treatment if they test HIV positive.

Jonasi’s refusal is not unusual stubbornness. The United Nations has goals for countries like South Africa to get people who know they have HIV onto treatment, known as the 95-95-95 targets. They had to be reached by the end of 2025 but very few countries did, so 2030 is the new date for the goals to be achieved.

The three targets build on each other: 95% of people with HIV knowing their status, then 95% of those diagnosed on treatment — the step South Africa struggles with — and finally 95% of those on treatment with the virus fully suppressed.

According to the national health department, South Africa is at 96-79-94. So only 79% of people who have been diagnosed are actually on treatment.

That’s a problem across Africa, which makes it even more important that TV series such as The Polygamist don't spread misinformation.

Why HIV kills more men than women

It’s especially men who are slow to take up treatment. Across Africa, they test later than women, start treatment later, and die at higher rates, because so many of us are raised to believe that a real man does not get sick and does not ask for help.

And stigma is one of the main reasons for that refusal. This is not a soft observation.

Our 2025 Frontiers in Public Healthstudy of young people aged 9 to 15 living with HIV in KwaZulu-Natal, found that the stigma they experienced was clearly linked to lower self-worth and higher levels of anxiety and depression.

Stigma is not a moral side-note to the epidemic. It is a direct injury to mental health, and wounded, frightened people are exactly the ones most likely to look away from a diagnosis.

Our review of 13 stigma-reduction programmes across sub-Saharan Africa found the same thing from the other side. Where stigma is left unchallenged, it quietly weakens every effort to test, prevent and treat.

So what would have changed Jonasi’s ending? Not a sterner lecture. Support.

In a study that pooled results from treatment-supporter programmes across sub-Saharan Africa, my colleagues and I found that when someone living with HIV had a treatment supporter walking beside them, whether a partner, a family member, a friend, a fellow patient, or a community health worker, they were more likely to take their medication and to bring the virus under control. The effect was strongest when that support came from the community, not only from health workers in clinics.

Jonasi had money but money is not the same as support. His illness stayed hidden and so he faced it alone. It is the people around a person, far more than their willpower, that keep treatment on track.

Blaming brings us nowhere

This also reframes the show’s treatment of women. Critics have rightly said The Polygamist gives its women very little power of their own.

But the deeper point is that the secrecy driving the plot is not just one man’s villainy. It is a pattern we can document.

In our MSAFIRI study of African, Caribbean and Black immigrants who acquired HIV after moving to Canada — published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health in 2025, partners often hid their HIV status. That secrecy led to painful, unplanned disclosures, and decisions about condoms split along familiar gender lines.

Women were often held back by a partner’s disapproval or by trust in the relationship, while men cited their own preference.

In a review my team has completed on HIV prevention among Black immigrant communities, women repeatedly said they could not even raise the subject of protecting themselves without a partner hearing it as an accusation of cheating.

When a woman cannot protect herself without risking suspicion, conflict or violence, the problem is not her character. It is the way power is arranged around her.

If the conversation The Polygamist has started is going to be useful, it has to move from blame to building.

Why gender inequality spreads HIV

The evidence points to things that genuinely work.

Prevention and treatment messages land best when two things are true: they are carried by trusted, Black-led, faith, and community organisations and they are framed around protecting your family rather than policing “risky” behaviour.

The first comes from research I presented at the 2025 Canadian Association for HIV Research conference; the second is borne out by studies across sub-Saharan Africa.

Care has to be respectful and non-judgmental, because a judgmental clinic is itself a reason people stop coming. In our review, feeling judged or stereotyped led people to delay or avoid care altogether, while respectful, non-judgmental providers were what made honest conversations possible.