HEALTH-NIGERIA: HIV Infections Rising among Young People

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

ENUGU, Eastern Nigeria, Jul 11 2002 (IPS) - The number of people living with HIV and AIDS in Nigeria has risen from 600,000 in 1991 to 3.6 million in 2002, with more than 50 percent of those infected being in the 15-29 age bracket, according to official statistics.

This grim statistics has forced government and other stakeholders to embark on awareness campaigns in schools, colleges and universities.

The Ministry of Education came to term with the grave realities of the scourge when the official statistics showed that between 45 and 50 percent of those who were being infected daily were in the 15-25 age bracket.

Efforts, introduced last year, to infuse sex education into primary and secondary school syllabuses appear to have done little to change sexual habits of young people.

“We have embarked on a battle to halt the spread of this dreaded disease among young boys and girls. The framework goes beyond just bringing about awareness on the dangers of HIV/AIDS. It caters for those who are already infected and seeks ways to prevent them from societal stigmatisation,” according to a health official in the eastern city of Enugu.

“We know now more than any other time that education has a great role to play in the prevention, control and mitigation of HIV/AIDS,” says Babalola Borishade, Nigeria’s Minister of Education.

“The significance of the education sector to help combat the disease becomes very obvious if we remind ourselves that HIV/AIDS has no cure or vaccine, that preventive education remains the strongest weapon against the epidemic worldwide. And that we have a significant proportion of the most vulnerable of the population segment, the youths in our education institutions,” he says.

“We must break ignorance through education and provide the awareness that the disease is no respecter of anybody and it cuts across boundaries,” Borishade says, calling on the international community to assist Africa in the battle to end the scourge. “As long as the world has become a global village, HIV/AIDS, which has no boundary, will continue to spread,” he says.

Aisha Ismail, who is the Minister of Women Affairs and Youth Development, says Nigeria needs 765 billion Naira (about 76 million dollars) to fight HIV/AIDS in the next five years.

“We lack the resources to effectively fight the scourge. The infection keeps on increasing. The international community should show much commitment to alleviate the sufferings of Africa,” she says.

A report on the “Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic” compiled and released last week by UNAIDS, the joint UN focal agency for the epidemic, projects that AIDS-related mortality in the 45 most affected countries could increase five times by 2020. That will amount to 68 million new deaths, compared to 13 million that died over the first two decades of the epidemic.

The new area of concern is West and Central Africa, where UNAIDS sees a tendency towards an increase in infection in Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Cameroun, Cote d’Ivoire and Togo, though infection rates have been stable over the past five years. A clear case of concern is Cameroun where prevalence among pregnant women has risen from 4.7 percent in 1996 to 11 percent in 2002.

At a National Partnership Forum organised in Lagos last week by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), on “Partnership for Sustainable Human Development – The HIV/AIDS Dimension”, Stella Iwuagwu, an AIDS campaigner, described the disease as the leading causes of death in sub-Saharan Africa.

Out of the estimated 40 million people living with HIV globally, 28.1 million of them live in sub-Saharan Africa. Majority of new infections occurs in young adults with young women especially vulnerable. About one-third of those currently living with HIV/AIDS are aged 15-24.

Nigeria, with a population of about 120 million, is already suffering from the consequences of the epidemic with a prevalence of 5.8 percent in 2001, translating to 3.7 million people living with HIV/AIDS among those aged between 15-49 years.

Iwuagwu, of the Centre for the Right of Health, argues that the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS is rolling back decades of development progress in Africa, noting that every element of African society from teachers to soldiers to farmers, is under attack by AIDS.

Mbaya Kankwenda, UNDP Resident Representative in Nigeria, says “In 1999 the prevalence rate in Nigeria as a whole was 5.4 percent. Today, it is higher and still climbing. In parts of the country, the rate is as high as 15 percent. This is a time bomb, which if nothing is done to redress, could explode and leave the nation barren of the educated and skilled labour it requires for sustainable development.”