By Samuel Onyekwere
With Nigeria being second behind South Africa in terms of HIV/AIDs scourge, the battle has been taken to the door steps of the Nigerian youths who are seen as the most vulnerable. At the December 1 event to mark the World HIV/AIDs day, a large number of youths especially secondary school students, stormed the Police College, Ikeja, open field, to show their intent to help in reducing the menace of HIV in Nigeria.
The World AIDS Day event was organized by the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research in conjunction with Saint Louis University, United States of America, the Lagos State AIDS Control Agency and Crowd Sourcing for Health, SESH, among others.
The event saw a massive turnout of over 1000 secondary schools students in Lagos. Some of the students presented their pitch on the way forward concerning HIV/AIDS, an idea conceive to help them make input on how to tackle HIV and help develop their entrepreneur skills. They were also educated on the need for self testing and how to use the HIV testing kit.
The CEO, Lagos State AIDS Control Agency, Dr Oluseyi Temowo, who also represented the Lagos State government, said one of the most common ways of contracting HIV/AIDS is through sexual intercourse and the youths are sexually active. “So, that is why it’s important to enlighten them on abstinence and where not possible, they should protect themselves.”
He said HIV awareness and medicare have developed to the extent that an effected mother can give birth to uninfected child. Moreover, because of the level of awareness among the populace, especially the artisans like the market women, drivers, commercial bus drivers and others, the level of stigmatization is beginning to drop. He revealed that most market women and other artisans these days encourage their customers to go for HIV test. In addition, his agency intends to take the next step by visiting brothels where commercial sex workers will be enlighten more on the benefits of using protection.
According to him, the Lagos State government under the leadership of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, has been able to refurbish 180 primary health centers in the state which makes it an average of four health care centers, per local government. All these are centers where infected people can go and access treatment and drugs. Unlike before, drugs are now available at pharmacies, and so somebody from Yaba may not have to painstaking go to Oshodi to buy his drugs.
Throwing more light on the self testing, he explained that before the kits are released, proper explanation is done and a situation where the person commits error during the self testing, there is a number he is expected to call to get more clarifications. There are monitoring groups in each of the local government council who attend to patients within their locality. In addition, the idea of self testing is to train youths that will be able to act as vanguards and mentor others.
In her contribution, Dr Oliver Ezechi, Deputy Director of Research, Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, he said the pitch was introduced to allow the youths bare their minds on what needs to be done as they have always been sidelined when adults take decisions on HIV/AIDS issue.
His words, ‘’ these youths are the particular group that are regularly missed when adults organize programmes on HIV. So, we decided to invite them to pitch their own ideas and this will also develop their entrepreneurial skills. If you look at the number of youths that came out today, over 1000 of them, that will show you that they are ready to take up the fight against HIV/AIDS’’. On the issue of research for HIV drugs, he explained that the research institutions in Nigeria have done impressively well in the area of research. HIV patients have moved from the era where they are left with gulping so many tablets several times a day, to a situation where they now take one tablet a day.
Associate Professor of Global Health, Saint Louis University, United States of America, Prof Juliet Iwelunmor, said her Institute funded by National Institute of Health, through USA government, decided to re-strategize the approach to tackling HIV/AIDs by introducing HIV self testing among young people – A demonstration of how to do self testing and promoting self testing among young people.
Prof Iwelunmor noted that most of the adults know their HIV status but the youths are never involved and so there is need to carry them along. ‘’Anytime we do intervention concerning HIV/AIDS, we always say, ‘give it to them’ , rather, they are supposed to be our partners, they should have autonomy on how to create helpful inputs. We are intentional, by finding young people that will drive that change and that is why we are partnering schools. You can see the effect of the pitching, if you did not submit any today, you will be encouraged to do so next year. I do not see the reason why creativity and innovation would not come from the Nigerian Youths. I am interested in untapped talents and that is why we did not involved celebrities because we want it to be from bottom to top, who says these kids here cannot be my celebrities tomorrow’’
Free HIV/AIDS test and counseling were conducted at the World AIDS day campaign.