THE Human Immunodeficiency Virus / Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) pandemic has attained frightening proportions on the African continent. In view of this, there is the need to aggressively engage in vigorous research for cost-effective solutions as well as search for new techniques for controlling its spread.  As beneficiaries of history, Africans are living witnesses to the horrors of slave trade and how it was denied the contributions of its younger and more vibrant generations.  Today, HIV/AIDS is contributing its own devastating share to the decimation of the productive population of the continent.  The AIDS pandemic continues to ravage the population of Sub-Saharan Africa and is seen as a threat to its productivity and development.  The incidence of the disease in Nigeria is currently at an all time high with an estimated 2.6 million people already infected.

 

To stall its devastating scourge, governments at all levels should intensify sponsorships of awareness and enlightenment campaigns on the disease, as well as the development of instruction materials as preparatory efforts towards the integration of its awareness into the country’s education curricula.  Despite its current activities, the National Action Committee on AIDS should intensify its actions while the federal government should also seek more support from the Multilateral Financial Institutions towards the fight against HIV/AIDS.

 

Other statistics reveal further that in less than twenty years, a staggering 11.8 million Africans have died from HIV/AIDS, almost three million of whom were children; an estimated 34 million people from Sub-Saharan Africa are currently infected with HIV virus while in every five minutes, some youngsters between the ages of 15 and 24 are being infected.

 

Apart from this, in some African countries, as much as one out of every three persons is HIV positive, while in some others, a quarter of pregnant women are infected each year, and this statistic is expected to increase. Statistics show further that at least one third of African babies born to HIV-infected mothers will likely be unintentionally infected via prenatal transmission or breast-feeding. The frightening statistics also show that more than 90 per cent of the world’s AIDS orphans live in Africa, while 80 per cent of all AIDS deaths and 70 per cent of all new HIV infections are also found in the continent. Expectedly and given the above stated facts and figures, HIV/AIDS has drastically cut the life expectancy in some African countries by more than thirty years in the hardest hit regions.

 

What the continent has on its hands is a pandemic that is out of control, gravely threatening the nations, their children and their future. Through HIV/AIDS, Africa has become an endangered continent.  After a long period of neglect, the scale of attention, materially, scientifically and even morally that is being given to HIV/AIDS, is just starting to rise to near the level required for a total war against the disease.  There is one frightful truth, however, which is that HIV/AIDS does not respect any barrier whatsoever, be it socio-cultural, racial, or national.  Unfortunately, despite several years of its devastating effects on the world as a whole, there is no cure for AIDS yet, though anti-retroviral drugs can increasingly extend the life of those infected with the virus.

 

Africa has watched the scale of this pandemic develop to the extent that some may even talk of AIDS being an African problem.  Pundits have observed with serious concern that Africa has in no way benefitted proportionately from the resources that have gone into the global effort to combat the spread of the killer disease.  Therefore, Africans who suffer from it are made to feel that their march to the graveyard will be poor, nasty and particularly painful compared, for example, to AIDS patients in parts of Europe and America, where affluence means less suffering,  longer lives and relative comfort, provided by the products of medical science and research.

 

We commend the various Heads of governments who have appropriately recognised the peril of HIV/AIDS and other related infectious diseases, and resolved to use their continental body, the African Union to draw attention to this threat and the impact on the future of the people of the continent. We also commend the break-through in accessing drugs manufactured for the treatment of AIDS in South Africa, and indeed the whole world.  Actions by some major companies to provide their products on a no-profit basis to Africa is also worthy of commendation.  It is gratifying that Nigeria recorded the beginning of a pilot project for the anti-retroviral treatment of 10,000 AIDS patients, using drugs imported at affordable prices from India.  We hope that the pharmaceutical industry of the developed world will be as open and as helpful for a dramatic scaling-up of anti-retroviral and other treatment throughout Africa, while African leaders should be ready to do business with those who are ready to show compassion.

 

Vaccines represent the best long-term hope for ending the AIDS epidemic.  Africa has to commit the best scientific research the world has to offer and this must be done in full and close partnership with African scientists and research institutions.  Nigeria should not be left behind in this endeavour.  But until an effective and affordable vaccine for HIV/AIDS is found, prevention and treatment are the only real options.  To prevent further spread of the HIV virus, the only weapons available are information, education and communication, all linked to treatment programmes for those already infected and it is when this is aggressively done that uninfected people can adequately protect themselves.

 

Despite the increased awareness campaigns on the existence of this disease, many citizens are yet to modify their high-risk lifestyles and so the media and opinion leaders must develop better ways of communicating the needs for safer lifestyles and sexual behaviour.  The impact of HIV/AIDS can be reduced by the generation of accurate epidemiological data. Legislation against discrimination against People Living With HIV/AIDS would be a statement of commitment by various governments that it is capable of protecting the rights of those who had been infected already while showing that they are ready to take even more serious steps to control the disease.