By Yinka Shokunbi
After 32 years, the world is marking the anniversary of the discovery of the first case of HIV/AIDS. While the event has a global theme titled “Getting to Zero,” Nigeria has adopted a national theme tagged: “Taking charge, get tested.”
The story of the discovery began on June 5, 1981 when an article concerning five previously healthy, young gay men in Los Angeles diagnosed with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, an infection that usually appears only in individuals with substantial immune system damage, appeared in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a publication of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Soon, more cases like these appeared, at first mainly in gay men, but then also in injection drug users, hemophiliacs, and other recipients of blood and blood products, heterosexual men and women, and babies who acquired the infection from their mothers during birth or breastfeeding.
Two of the world’s leaders in AIDS research – Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and Dr. Jack Whitescarver, NIH associate director for AIDS Research and the director of the NIH Office of AIDS Research (OAR) – then began to confront the reality of a deadly new disease that would change the world: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
Speaking on the 2013 theme, Executive Director of the UNAIDS, Michel Sidibe, noted in his speech that not only do we need to remember families and friends, we all have lost to AIDS.
He said: “But we can also rejoice and have hope for the future that the number of new HIV infections have reduced and the number AIDS related deaths is down and the number of people on treatment is up.
“For the first time we can see in sight the end to an epidemic which has brought such an immense devastation to the world and soon we would be able to announce an AIDS-free generation.”
Latest estimates from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) show that the world continues to close in on the goal of ending the AIDS epidemic by stopping HIV transmission and halting AIDS-related deaths. Remarkable progress has been made over the last decade – yet significant challenges remain.
From the available fact sheets of the UNAIDS, globally, the number of new HIV infections continues to fall. There were 2.3 million new HIV infections (1.9 million–2.7 million) in 2012. This, the body noted, is the lowest number of annual new infections since the mid-to-late 1990s, when approximately 3.5 million (3.3 million–4.1 million) people were acquiring HIV every year.
According to the fact sheet, the number of HIV infections declined by more than 50 percent in 26 countries between 2001 and 2012 and between 25 percent and 49 percent in an additional 17 countries. The drop in new HIV infections is most pronounced among children.
From 2001 to 2012 the number of children newly infected with HIV dropped by 52 percent – from 550,000 (500,000–620,000) in 2001 to 260,000 (230,000–320,000) in 2012.
In the beginning, treatment drugs were a cocktail of medicines to be swallowed at once at very huge cost in the developing countries including Nigeria and many who tested positive, including late Alero Anikulapo-Kuti, died as the cost was unaffordable.
Today, access to treatment has drastically improved no doubt and this is put at around $140 (about N22,000) per person a year, whereas in the mid 1990’s the cost was around $10,000 per person yearly.
What it means is that, over time, there has been more political commitment and investment in the issues of HIV/AIDS around the world, particularly in developed countries where more donors have put in financial commitment to assist the war-torn and developing countries address the HIV prevalence. The most of the investment is the area of Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMCT) an effort to get to a zero-level of HIV infections and put an end to the AIDS epidemic in the world.
Science has shown that if pregnant women living with HIV have access to antiretroviral medicines the risk of transmitting the virus to their child can be reduced to below five percent. As a result, access has dramatically increased. By 2012, some 62 percent of pregnant women living with HIV had access to antiretroviral medicines and in many countries coverage levels exceeded 80 percent.
Sidibe noted, “The end of the epidemic will mean so much to many. It would mean zero-people dying of AIDS and all people will be living with dignity and AIDS will mean celebrating birthdays instead of attending funerals and we must make no mistakes because stigma, denial and complacency could still block our paths.
“We must join our paths and our voices, because the end of AIDS is within our power if we stay true to our vision we will be remembered this is as we began to transform our dream to reality.”
For Nigeria to achieve the zero-HIV/AIDS status in the shortest possible time, everyone must be informed to understand why knowing the HIV status is important as the first step to living positively and be positive with lifestyles.
It would not be out of place that voluntarily testing opportunities be included in every medical check every individual does at every given opportunity.
Director-General of the National Agency for Control of HIV/AIDS (NACA) Professor John Idoko, disclosed: “It is time indeed that every Nigerian avail themselves with the opportunity to test their HIV status in an integrated multi disease prevention campaign by getting tested for BP, blood sugar, and malaria and then make use of the long lasting insecticide treated nets provided for every pregnant woman and children.”
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