Message from Prof. John Idoko
Head of Infectious Disease, Jos University Teaching Hospital

October 2002

Tudun Wada community, like most communities with large portions of slums, is comprised of dilapidated and closely packed houses. A common situation here is that of a man, his wife and their children living in one room (not an apartment). Several houses serve as residence, brothels and Local beer (“Burukutu”) parlours. This community records the highest area of this local brew (which is made from highly fermented millet or guinea corn and is extremely high in alcohol content), and knowing the relationship between alcohol consumption and decreased sexual inhibition and increased libido, one can only imagine what happens afterwards. These beer parlous are also strategically located close to brothels and idle out of school youths and older men are fixtures in such places. Their way of life has therefore made HIV/AIDS to thrive in the community. HaltAIDS Group’s (HAG) Voluntary Counseling and Confidential Testing (VCCT) conducted in the community in August, 2002 revealed that out of about 100 people, 15 were infected with the HIV virus, most of which have refused to come for their result. HAG also gathered from the community during one of their surveys that most of the deaths are due to HIV/AIDS but they are associated with witchcraft or other means due to stigmatization. This was also confirmed in one of their community committee meetings when the members said many families have lost their loved ones to HIV/AIDS but people will not come out to admit that they are, or a member of their family is, infected. We also gathered that many people have committed suicide when they got the news and many have been deserted by their family members.

Since 1986 when Nigeria recorded its first AIDS case, the HIV/AIDS epidemic has been spreading at an alarming rate and it is now in the nascent stage of transmission. The sero-prevalence rate increased from 1.8% in 1991, to 5.8% in 2001 (sentinel survey, 2001). About 3.1 million Nigerians are HIV carriers and are living with the infection and it is estimated that over 5 million people in Nigeria will be infected by the end of this year. Record shows that most of the people infected are in the adolescents and young adult group. This has implications for the economic development of the nation.

HIV/AIDS is a particularly difficult public health challenge in Nigeria because most of the people infected are not aware of their status due to the low level of awareness and ignorance in the general population. Those who know their status deny it because of the stigma attached to the infection. The issue of stigmatization is a serious one because it makes living positive with the infection difficult. If this continues, it means people will not embrace VCCT because they will not want to know their status and those who are aware of their positive status will continue to deny it. Such a condition will only aggravate the rate of spread of the virus in the country.

Another important issue here has to do with sex – There is a lot of sexual networking going on in Nigeria but people pretend about it, talking about sex is seen as a sign of promiscuity and sexuality education is still not accepted in most parts of the country. During HAG’s VCCT in Tudun Wada, the people were much more interested with preventing the virus through clippers (scissors) than through sex. Such pretence about people’s sex life makes educating them on protective measure very difficult. While we are pretending the nation keeps losing a lot of her youngsters, unless something is done to address the pretence associated with sexual matters and the issue of stigma, we may find ourselves in the same situation as that of South Africa.

The subsidy given by the Federal Government on the antiretroviral drugs has given some form of hope to the infected persons- this is encouraging more people who are infected to come out.

The work in Nigeria has had a tremendous on the HIV/AIDS prevention in Nigeria. For us at HAG, the additional APIN funds have helped to strengthen our work particularly in Tudun Wada community of Jos. For instance, it has enabled us to carry out free HIV/AIDS testing, STIs testing and treatment, get additional counselors for the pre and post counseling of HIV/AIDS and in the production of more outreach materials.

A major visible change is in the area of VCCT – hitherto, people were not even interested in knowing their sero-status, but due to the rigorous education mounted by Halt AIDS Group in the community on the need to know their sero-status and the benefits attached to it, more people are now embracing VCCT.

One major area that the organization would like to focus on is to have a forum in form of Youth Centre with indoor and outdoor games to attract the out of school youths to be educated on Reproductive Health matters. The APIN fund has enabled us to also meet some of our needs in the area of computers which has helped to improve our productivity.