InterPress News Service (IPS) - Monday, September 28, 1998
Toye Olori

The group, known as the Nigerian Network of People Living With HIV/AIDS (NNPLWA), was launched in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna recently. "The launching of the network would awaken Nigerians to the reality and problems of AIDS," says NNPLWA President John Ibekwe. "We are all living examples of a group of Nigerians living with this dreaded disease. You don't have to be infected to be affected by the problem of HIV/AIDS."

Ibekwe urged Nigeria's 107 million people to join the fight against the disease. "We cannot do it alone, we need the support of Nigerians in order to fight the disease in our homes, villages, local governments, communities and states", he says.

More than 2.5 Nigerians, who carry the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) virus, have often complained that they have been shunned by friends and family members.

"I became very sick for a long time. I was losing weight and moved from hospital to hospital in search of the cause of my predicament. When we discovered that I was infected, my husband sent me packing from the house," says Blessing Iverem who hails from the Nigerian state of Benue.

"But when I learned about the network, I knew I was not alone. Now I can live positively," she says.

A Nigerian naval officer, who declined to be named, discovered he was HIV-positive after his wife died of a protracted illness, compelling him to go for AIDS test.

He's now urging colleagues to educate the society and take care of their family. "I believe it is not the end of the world. My hope are my kids. I have to take care of them. This means I have to live...I must live," he says.

Nasir Sani-Gwarzo of the National AIDS Control Programme (NASCP) has warned that the discrimination against HIV victims poses a danger to the crusade against the disease.

In a message of support to the NNPLWA, international aid agencies like the UN Children's Fund (Unicef), the UN Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) urged the government to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic as a matter of urgency.

Matthew Rahj, who is coordinator of AIDS awareness campaign in Benue state, says before the awareness campaign in his region, members of his committee were ridiculed and insulted, and that campaign posters and bill-boards were also destroyed.

Despite some successes, Rahj says the number of infections are rising in Nigeria. In the middlebelt state of Niger, about 86 AIDS- related deaths have been recorded, and 400 persons, out of more than 19,000 screened, have tested positive in the past 'few months', according to official report.

No one knows exactly how many people have succumbed to the disease in Nigeria, where sex education is still regarded as a taboo.

But the rising number of AIDS cases has prompted health officials to call on the government to enact a law compelling couples to undergo AIDS test before marriage.

A laboratory technician, Elijah Yisa, says such a test will help control the spread of the disease, and appeals to Nigerians to support it.

Some have even suggested that HIV-positive persons carry tags to identify them as sufferers. But Femi Soyinka, coordinator of the Nigeria Network on AIDS Prevention, Ethics, Law, Support and Care, disagreed.

"Nigerian people living with HIV/AIDS also belong to that democratic community and encompass such democratic ideals that the Nigerian society is strenuously fighting to attain. Their discrimination will be a gross violation of that laudable ideal," he says.(END/IPS/to/mn/98)
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