Shutting the Door against HIV/AIDS

SHE was a strange sight, an astronaut in full gear in a hospital ward. It was not a psychiatric ward; she did not suffer from delusions of grandeur. She was a medical doctor and not a patient.

A mysterious monster had made a sudden, slaughterous appearance in the world. It was like the Abominable Snowman, elusive but leaving fatal footprints. Medical researchers named it AIDS — Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

THE American doctor was in great dread of the disease. She was warned to stop dressing like an astronaut while making her ward rounds, but she ignored the warnings. She was sacked by the hospital and she said she had no regrets for trying to protect herself. Was the doctor neurotic?

SHE was not the only person who feared the disease in the first months and years of its manifestation. The monster has now been caged, though not tamed. The disease has now been fully understood.

AIDS is the terminal form of the disease. Those who have full-blown AIDS cannot be saved. AIDS is not a one-step disease. It is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus —HIV. In the early years of the disease, not much could be done to slow down the march of HIV to the AIDS terminus. AIDS patients suffered dreadfully and died.

THE situation is very different now, at least in the advanced countries. HIV is stopped from progressing to AIDS in many cases. The early detection of HIV is crucial. Facilities to conduct tests for HIV are readily available and the test results are reliable. And those who test positive for the disease have access to life-prolonging drugs.

IT is a different, sad story in Africa. The current world HIV-AIDS population is put at 33.2 million. UNAIDS said last week that its 2006 figures of 39.5 million sufferers had been an overestimation, that the correct figures, in the light of new data, were 32.7 million.

THIS is little comfort as 2.5 million people contracted the virus in 2007, bringing the number of infected people worldwide to 33.2 million. Africa is said to account for most of the sufferers, a hefty 22.5 million or 68 per cent.

IN spite of increased funding by world bodies, foreign governments and individuals like Mr. Bill Gates, HIV-AIDS continues to devastate sub-Saharan Africa. The disease is a terrible scourge in Southern Africa. Zambia has many AIDS orphans and strange presidential theories in South Africa have, perhaps, led to the disease advancing and not retreating.

ACCURATE figures of HIV-AIDS sufferers are hard to come by in Nigeria. The figures have been as high as five million Nigerians living with the disease and as “low” as two million. But there is no doubt that the situation is serious.

HIV-AIDS, if unchecked, can cripple the productive population. HIV sufferers fall ill frequently and those with full-blown AIDS are usually bedridden. They are unable to earn a steady living, and as husband and wife are usually infected, they live in poverty. Their children are unable to go to school.

NO country can progress when the people of productive age are hobbled by disease. These are young people and many of them engaged in reckless sexual behaviour. They believe they are having fun. The message needs to be got across that they may be having fatal fun.

THE country’s HIV-AIDS agencies, non-governmental organisations and the media have been giving HIV-AIDS education. But more needs to be done. The campaign is currently episodic, gathering momentum only when events like World AIDS Day is near. The campaign needs to be sustained.

INFORMATION on HIV-AIDS should be made available to rural dwellers. The rural areas are no longer virgin lands of virtue. And superstition still dominates the lives of many of them. They need to know that exuberant sexual behaviour, and not witches, is responsible for life-wasting diseases like HIV-AIDS.

THE spread of HIV-AIDS can be curbed, but the disease still has no cure. And most HIV sufferers in Nigeria have no access to the available treatment. Most pregnant women in the country who go to the hospital for antenatal care are tested for the disease. But the rate of mother-to-child transmission is very high in the country. This suggests that pregnant women carrying the disease are not getting the right advice or adequate therapy.

THIS should be quickly and thoroughly addressed. Innocent babies should not be subjected to the horrors of HIV.

MOST Nigerians living with HIV do not have access to subsidised anti-retroviral drugs. And it has been said that some of the HIV drugs on sale in the country are not potent. Fake or adulterated HIV drugs should be kept out of the country. The government should make more subsidised anti-retroviral drugs available. The HIV-AIDS agencies should be more transparent in their management of resources.

THE search for a local cure for the disease should be more organised. No claim of a cure should be dismissed out of hand. All such claims should be investigated. Western-trained scientists should not turn their nose up at the claims of traditional doctors. Their herbs should be subjected to a truly scientific analysis.

HIV-AIDS is not the mysterious monster it used to be. It has been ensnared and Nigeria should be involved in the effort to slay it.