InterPress News Service (IPS) - March 5, 1998
Tansa Musa

"Everywhere you go in Yaounde, the answer seems to be the same: 'I don't believe it (AIDS) exists. How can I believe in AIDS when I have never seen a patient. It is all trash'," says Sa'ah Joseph Azeng, a participant to a recent seminar on Population, Health and the Environment.

According to Dr Dan Lantum, an AIDS researcher and lecturer in the Faculty of Bio-Medical Sciences at the University of Yaounde I, it has been difficult to expose the disease in Cameroon where the respect for the individual's right to privacy and the fear of being shunned by society has swept AIDS under the carpet.

Journalists who attended the seminar, organised by the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) and the United Nations, Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), say that the lack of adequate information and resources are the main obstacles to AIDS awareness in this Central African nation.

According to a recent survey by the Ministry of Public Health, sex workers, the army and long-distance drivers are the high risks groups in Cameroon. But the incidence of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is still largely under-reported, because people are afraid to go for testing.

"You want me to really go for the test?" a shoemaker at the Melen neighbourhood in Yaounde asks incredulously. "I am sure you are not serious. If I ever discovered that I have contacted this terminal disease, the next thing I will do is to commit suicide, because life would have been brought to nothing."

Another Yaounde resident unabashedly told IPS that: "... all the talk about the use of condoms and other contraceptives, or (the talk about) stick to one sexual partner, is nonsense".

And yet others like Rita, an unemployed university graduate, still believe that AIDS is a western fabrication.

"How do you expect me to believe in this thing when they say it was first discovered in America and then they go on to tell us that it originated in Africa? Throughout history, the White man has painted a dark picture of Africa and Africans so as to better exploit us. That is how I see the AIDS debate," she says.

According to public health figures in Yaounde, the capital city, in 1994, there were 230,000 people diagnosed with HIV. Some 2,766 more cases were reported in 1995.

It is also estimated that four out of every 10 teenagers is in danger of contracting AIDS, and about 300 new cases are declared every year.

Public health authorities have opened special clinics to enable people to obtain the appropriate information and counselling without fear of being victimised. But even this effort has not received the full support of the population. "Only 10 percent of infected persons know they are carriers and this is because they have carried out the test," says Dr. Moni Lobe, a haematologist at the Yaounde Central Hospital.

In spite of these difficulties, however, health experts, agree that mass awareness campaigns and preventive initiatives remain the best ways to communicate about AIDS to the population.

"The most affected persons," says Lobe, "fall between the ages of 20 and 40. So the only effective way of reducing HIV infection is to provide enough education and information for persons, especially students, who will reach this age group in two or three years."

According to Dr Lantum, the population has a two-fold responsibility: to fight against the disease and to accommodate its victims.

Dr Ntone Eyime, a psychiatrist at Yaounde Central Hospital, says people living with HIV/AIDS need moral and family support and should not be shunned as is often the case.

Cameroon's new Minister for Public Health, Gottlieb Monekosso, who was the former regional director for the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Africa, says he will make the fight against AIDS his top priority. He has already set aside funds to revive the National AIDS Prevention Programme.

Cheik Tidiane Sy, the UNESCO Resident Representative in Cameroon, says that the media too has a key role to play in making the Cameroonian population more conscious of AIDS and other population issues.

"We must recognise that the populations of Africa, notably those of Cameroon, are not always aware of the risk of rapid population growth and sustainable management of available resources, because the media, the link with the people, has continued to relegate to the background problems of population, health and the environment.

"...It is the task of media professionals to use their persuasive talents to let the citizens become more interested in those issues that affect their day-to-day lives," Sy says. (END/IPS/TM/PM98)

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