Lagos, Nigeria - When Andrew* first found out he was HIV-positive in January this year, he suffered a fleeting sense of paralysis, fearing his life was about to change forever.

At 27, it was one of the things he dreaded as a gay man who was still in the closet. Even within the Nigerian LGBT community, HIV discrimination is rife and Andrew noticed no one would reply to him on the dating apps he used when he changed his status. In the weeks after his diagnosis, he developed a routine to deal with the illness: religiously taking his HIV medication and practising celibacy.

Andrew is a software developer who views the world through a prism of codes and programs, and as the coronavirus pandemic became very real, with Nigeria confirming its first case of the contagion in February, he felt uneasy.

The hysteria on the internet, fear-mongering, and the subsequent government-enforced lockdown in Lagos drove him to check his stash of HIV medication, or antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. Andrew started a six-month treatment schedule in January - one 300mg tablet taken daily to lower the presence of the virus in his body. With half the batch already taken, he realised he had enough to last him until June.

But Andrew was still gripped with anxiety. "I'm supposed to get tested after six months to check if I'm detectable. I don't think I'm detectable yet, and with coronavirus in town, what if I contract it with the state of my immune system?" he wondered. Read more via AL Jazeera