By Toye Olori
LAGOS, Aug 26 2003 (IPS)

Adults living with HIV/AIDS are receiving subsidised anti-retroviral drugs, while children in similar situation are not benefiting from the medicine which the government launched last year, rights activists complain.

”Infected children have a right to life just as their adult counterparts who are currently benefiting from government anti-retroviral programme,” says Oba Oladapo, chairperson of Positive Life Association, a non-governmental organisation.

Oladapo, who is living with HIV, argues that delay in implementing government plans to administer anti-retroviral cocktails on such children will lead to death of more children.

Babatunde Oshotimehin, chairperson of the National Action Committee on AIDS (NACA), announced early this year that government would soon begin to administer anti-retroviral cocktail on 5,000 children. But the programme has yet to take off.

Under the anti-retroviral programme, cocktails of the drugs are administered on about 10,000 infected adults at heavily subsidised rates of 1,000 Naira (less than 10 U.S. dollars) per month. Unsubsidised drugs cost 50,000 Naira (about 500 U.S. dollars) per month. More than three million adults and 800,000 children are living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria, according to NACA.

President Olusegun Obasanjo boasts that Nigeria is the first country in Africa to introduce anti-retroviral drugs at subsidised price for people living with HIV/AIDS. ”We have gone to that extent in the fight against HIV/AIDS, while other countries are still arguing whether AIDS exists or not,” Obasanjo said on national television on Aug. 24.

He said the level of awareness no longer makes people shy away from taking HIV test. ”They know there is no taboo, and they know they can get help and they can be given hope,” said Obasanjo.

This, however, cannot be said of children who are daily being infected through no fault of theirs.

Statistics show that everyday, 17,123 women become pregnant, among whom, 993 are HIV positive and 308 transmit the disease to their children. Of the figure, 246 women deliver children free from HIV through comprehensive Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission.

Research shows that there is up to 40 percent chance of women passing HIV to their children, 25 percent of infants with HIV get infected during or before their birth and about 15 percent of infants with HIV are infected through breastfeeding. NGOs have taken up the challenge to reduce the trend.

The first HIV case was recorded in Nigeria in 1986. And the 2001 report shows that Nigeria has 3.5 million cases of HIV, with women leading the figure with 55 percent, while men represent 45 percent of cases. Up to 850,000 deaths have been recorded since 1986, according to NACA.

Nigeria’s new National Policy on HIV/AIDS, which replaced the 1997 one, has shifted focus from health-driven to multi-sectoral approach. But not much has been said about assistance to children living with HIV/AIDS or AIDS orphans.

In Africa, Uganda and Senegal have reduced their HIV/AIDS prevalence rates. "If other nations can achieve such results, Nigeria can do the same,” Obasanjo said.

Some NGOs have begun looking into ways to help children and the vulnerable in the society. For example, Gede Foundation, a-non governmental organisation promoting health and hope in Africa, has initiated two programmes critical to care for people living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria.

The organisation is putting together a scholarship programme for orphans and vulnerable children and a nutrition programme for people living with HIV/AIDS, which were hitherto avoided by other groups. One million Nigerian children have been orphaned by AIDS, according to figures from NACA.

Jennifer Atiku-Abubakar, founder of Gede Foundation, says her organisation is working with other grassroots groups to cater for orphaned children from kindergarten to secondary school level. The scholarship will assist orphans and alleviate the strain on the social system imposed by the growing number of the children.

”It will help to keep these children away from crimes, engaging in prostitution and becoming victims of child abuse in their communities and within their families,” Abubakar said.

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