A look into the history of AIDS shows that in 1981, medical practitioners in USA discovered a strange illness among a small number of gay men. The illness was given several names until it was finally called HIV/AIDS. It later became one of the leading causes of death globally. HIV progressively infects cells of the immune system, breaking down the body’s ability to fend off some infections and other diseases, whereas AIDS is the most advanced stage of HIV infection, defined by the occurrence of any of the more than 20 opportunistic infections or related cancers.
HIV can be transmitted through: transfusion of contaminated blood and blood products; unprotected vaginal or anal sexual intercourse; oral sex with an infected person; transmission between an infected mother and her baby during pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding; sharing of contaminated sharp instruments and the use of contaminated and unsterilized hospital equipment such as needles and syringes.
At the end of 2013, about 35 million people were living with the virus, adults constituting about 31.8 million while children (less than 15 years) made up of about 3.2 million. Among the about 31.8 million adults living with the virus, 16 million were women.
Also, out of the about 35 million people living with the virus globally, about 32.6 million are in low and middle income countries like Nigeria. 36% of these 32.6 million people living with the virus in low and middle income countries, which is about 11.7 million, had access to anti-retroviral medications in 2013. Recently, UNAIDS estimated that by June 2014, about 13.6 million HIV patients had access to the medications which was a huge step towards ensuring that 15 million people have access to anti-retroviral medications by 2015. About two million people were newly enrolled on anti-retroviral medications in 2013, making it the largest number ever recorded since the HIV pandemic started.
Regrettably, about 2.1 million people were newly infected in 2013, out of which about 1.9 million people were adults. The virus, with its related conditions, has killed 39 million people ever since it started with 2013 alone recording about 1.5 million deaths, adults constituting about 1.3 million while children less than 15 years constituted about 190,000. Out of the 1.5 million deaths recorded in 2013, about 360,000 deaths occurred among people living with HIV and Pulmonary Tuberculosis. Also, majority of people ( about 78% ) living with both HIV and Tuberculosis reside in sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, in 2013, 7 out of 10 pregnant women living with HIV received anti-retroviral drugs.
The way forward now is to try to maintain an HIV-free generation through attitudinal change. Nigeria and other African countries should abhor obnoxious cultural and personal practices that help in the spread of the virus. A former president of South Africa once said that the happiest day in his life was the day he was circumcised. Although from medical perspectives, circumcision reduces the rate of HIV transmission, the way people were circumcised in South Africa accounted for their high rate of HIV infection. The circumcisers use the same knife to circumcise all the ‘candidates’ billed for a particular circumcision ceremony, hence if the knife was used for an HIV positive ‘candidate’, the subsequent boys would be infected with the same knife.
In Nigeria today, many of the circumcisions performed in our rural settings are done with unsterilised sharp instruments and mainly by quacks. Also, many Nigerians believe that HIV AIDS does not exist in the first place while some gullible ones believe that the full meaning of AIDS is American Ideology for Dodging Sex.
There is also a lack of strict legislation and political will to tackle AIDS. Many of our women get to know their HIV statuses during antenatal visits where it is mandatory in all government hospitals and some privately-owned hospitals for all pregnant women to be tested for HIV. The aim is to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV. The question is, who infected who in our marriages? In majority of the cases, it is the men that infect the women, though this observation is not absolute. In my few years of medical practice, I have not seen an HIV- negative woman who remained negative after having an episode of unprotected sex with an HIV positive man, but I have seen several HIV negative men who remain negative after having episodes of unprotected sex with HIV positive women, though that is not a reason for the practice of unprotected sex by men. Many of our religious houses still wed two intending couples without making premarital HIV testing compulsory.
I read a story in one of our national dailies, sometime last year where a girl was raped and when the mother wanted to make a case against the rapist, people advised the mother not to bother herself since her daughter was not a virgin before she was raped. What an error in reasoning! There are millions of rape cases that go unreported daily in Africa, especially in Nigeria because the victims are aware that majority of cases are won not by saying the truth, but by hiring the services of a ‘good’ lawyer who is skillful at twisting facts and navigating safely through the technicalities of the law.
In developed and saner societies, can an HIV positive man sleeps with an HIV negative woman without disclosing his health status? If an HIV positive man infects any HIV negative lady, the damages the man will pay will make him insolvent and at the end he will still be jailed. We also have the problem of deceitful religious practices and lack of proper sex education. These should be addressed.
Dr. John wrote in from Port Harcourt
No comments:
Post a Comment