As Africa Grapples With HIV/AIDS

The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)/ Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) has been a major source of worry to mankind since
the early eighties. Governments of various countries in the world  have expended so much to combat this killer
disease. In the same vein, international organisations and agencies such as the
World Health Organisation (WHO), United Nations Development Programme  (UNDP), World Bank, Global Fund, UNAIDS and
IFESH have been at the fore-front of sponsoring programmes aimed at curtailing
the spread of the pandemic.

Available statistics suggest that the cummulative number of
estimated HIV infection worldwide currently stands at over 50 million while
nearly 25 million, people have died of AIDS in the past 27 years across the
globe.

All over the world, HIV/AIDS is primarily a sexually
transmitted disease (STD) that is transmitted through unprotected sexual
intercourse. The infection is also spread through blood,  donated organs, or semen, and through mother-to-child
during pregnancy, labour and breastfeeding.

If a person is transfused with HIV-infected blood, there is
a 95 per cent risk that the person will become infected with the virus. The
chances of becoming infected with HIV through a blood transfusion, however
varies between countries, depending on the level of safety precaution in place.
Developing countries stand a higher risk than the developed ones.

Africa for instance, is home to nearly 70 per cent of adult
and 80 per cent of children living with HIV in the world. Empirical evidence
from the continent indicates that 55 per cent of the infected adults are women.

In Nigeria, as in most sub-Saharan Africa, this is mostly
due to their vulnerability based primary on gender and traditions. Such
tradi-tions, viewed in modern day as harmful traditi-onal practices, include
Female Genital Mutil-ation (FGM). In addition to this, are poor health care
system and continuous use of unsterilised equipment in hospitals clinics, as
well as improper screening of blood before transfusion.

In addition to enhancing the transmission of HIV, FGM as
practiced in some parts of Nigeria, results in infibulation which causes pain
that lasts the victim for the rest of her life. In worst cases, the victim
loses her ability to  bear children.

It has been observed that while HIV/AIDS continues to spread
more and more in Sub-Saharan Africa, the disease has not yet become endemic in
many other regions of the world. It has only been restricted to certain groups
of the people such as the intervention drug users, commercial sex workers and
homosexuals.

Another means through which HIV is transferred is through
mother to child, popularly called “Mother-To-Child-Transmission” (MTCT) of
HIV/AIDS.

Speaking  in July last
year during the 6th International AIDS Society Conference in Rome, the Director
General of the National Agency for the Control of HIV/AIDS (NACA), Professor
John Idoko, said, “many babies in Nigeria are born with HIV/AIDS because of the
country’s weak primary healthcare system”.

He noted that “the challenges we are facing are due to the
weak PHC (Primary Health Centres) wherein PMTCT cannot be established in
antenatal care, where about 70 per cent of Nigerians, especially women,
reside”.

In his paper at the conference  titled “A Spectrum of Challenges in Pediatric
HIV-1 Infection; from scaling up PMTCT Programmes to Effective ARV Treatment”,
Idoko revealed that an estimated 2.5 million children are living with HIV and
2.3 million (90%) of them are in sub-Saharan Africa.

“Majority of these children are infected as a result of
transmission from mothers to children during pregnancy, labour, delivery or
breast feeding”, he said.

One other  source of
transmitting the HIV is through unscreened or unsafe blood transfusion. During
a recent roundtable discussion on HIV and blood donation by the Journalists
Against AIDS (JAIDS), the Director-General of the Nigerian Institute for
Medical Research (NIMR), Professor Innocent Ujah in his presentation, explained
that Nigeria has continued to experience new HIV infection due to unsafe blood
transmission.

He noted that blood is the most donated tissue in medicine
and is a veritable tool in many life-saving situations if used appropriately
and judiciously. However, he explained that as much as blood can be
life-saving, its misuse could be dangerous and life threatening.

A national baseline data survey on blood transfusion in
August 2005 indicated that only about half a million units of blood were
collected from private and public sources in the previous one year with paid
donors accounting for more than 90 per cent of the blood donated.

Experts agree that with more awareness created on causes of
HIV and how to prevent the killer disease, the rate at which people contract
the disease will be reduced and the society will be better for it. They
therefore charged the National Orientation Agency (NOA) and all health related
agencies to step up awareness campaign especially in the rural areas and
communities that still practice female genital mutilation and other health
risky practices that could lead to HIV.

Even as the world awaits permanent cure to HIV/AIDS, experts
are unanimous that the temporary solutions to the world’s dreaded disease lie
in individual in the society.