World AIDS Day: How Far, How Well?
Princess-Ekwi Ajide Abuja
It is a truism that despite advancements in treatment and prevention, and the ongoing efforts to achieve a world without AIDS, 38 million people worldwide are still grappling with HIV, while over 36 million have lost their lives owing to AIDS-related illnesses.
This surge in HIV prevalence in spite of global efforts is worrisome as there are regions and populations that continue to face disproportionate burdens notwithstanding the significant strides made, in situations such as access to antiretroviral therapy (ART), which remains a huge problem for many in developing countries like Nigeria where stigmatisation, funding gaps, and reaching marginalized populations still pose huge challenges.
As the globe celebrates the World AIDS Day today, it becomes extremely important that world leaders reflect on the progress made so far, in the fight against HIV/AIDS, while highlighting the challenges that persist to enable them make informed choices.
Since stigma and discrimination have remained formidable barriers to HIV prevention, treatment, and support, efforts must be made to eradicate misconceptions and foster understanding so as to create an inclusive environment for those affected by HIV and their family members.
Low-income and middle-income countries still bear the brunt of disparities in access to HIV treatment, hence the need to ensure equitable access to medication and healthcare services should be any government’s priority in order to truly combat the global HIV/AIDS epidemic.
The race to achieving the 2030 target of ending the AIDS epidemic in countries like Nigeria may well be an effort in futility not because the government has not worked towards that but because, many of such efforts remain paper based policies or have not been tailored to impact on the intended beneficiaries.
Some notable efforts of the Nigerian government to address HIV/AIDS and reducing its impact on the population include: development and implementation of several National Strategic Plans for HIV/AIDS, prevention awareness campaigns, educational programmes, and distribution of condoms targeted at high risk populations, prioritised elimination of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV/AIDS, MTCT.
Others are: Community Engagement, HIV testing and counseling, integrating HIV/AIDS services with other healthcare services, funding research and innovative solutions for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment and international partnership.
Unfortunately, in spite of these efforts, Nigeria has a generalized HIV epidemic with the highest HIV burden in West and Central African sub-region.
The country has an estimated 1.8 million people living with HIV (PLHIV) (2019 Spectrum estimate) and an estimated 107,112 new HIV infections which is about 38% of new infections in West and Central African region.
But the Director General of National Agency for the Control of AIDS, Dr. Gambo Aliyu, says Nigeria is moving closer to meeting the target with NACA’s sustainability agenda in collaboration with its development partners supporting the national HIV response, and community leaders taking ownership of the sustainability programme.
According to him, as the country continues to make commendable progress towards achieving epidemic control that is necessary to ending AIDS by 2030, all should also be mindful that ending AIDS comes with the huge challenge of sustainability of the control.
What then should be done?
A medical practitioner, Amina Coker, said, the driving force of HIV epidemic in Nigeria are people practicing low-risk sex saying that the high risk groups include female sex workers, men who have sex with men and drug users who use injection.
She noted that these groups of people contribute substantially to new infections hence frequent sensitisation will be the answer to reducing the impact.
For a HIV/AIDS prevention advocate, Mr. Emmanuel Ekwonna, even though it seems advocacy for safe living is silent in Nigeria, there’s need to remind the citizenry not to let their guards down because HIV-AIDS has not been eradicated.
Mr. Ekwonna, believes that educating youths about HIV prevention should remain the priority of any government while calling for comprehensive sex education in schools, destigmatization of testing, and promoting safe practices as the most viable strategies for preventing new infections amongst the younger generation.
As the world commemorates the World AIDS Day with the theme, ‘Let communities lead’, it is imperative to acknowledge the successes recorded so far, and as well recognise the challenges that have persisted and require communities to lead the world for collective action.
