Inter Press Service - September 6, 2001
Remi Oyo

Of the 5.4 percent, youths in the age bracket 20-24 are the worst hit, according to a 1999 survey by the ministry of health.

The Youth Empowerment Foundation (YEF) with support from the U.S. Assistance for International Development (USAID) and the John Hopkins University Centre for Communication Programme recently launched a hotline to provide information to the youth.

The hotline, the first to be introduced in Nigeria, kicked off with 'one private telephone number' dedicated to providing voluntary user-friendly information about the disease for six hours on weekdays last year, says Iwalola Akin-Jimoh, executive director of YEF.

Now the hotline offers a 24-hour service.

According to Akin-Jimoh, "The service aims at reaching the youth with credible information to make sound decisions on actions that could predispose them to HIV/AIDS."

A YEF research shows that the youth who phone in for help do not even own private telephone lines. "Our research shows that 48 percent of people who called were not using their own private telephone lines and at least eight percent were calling from public telephones," says Akin-Jimoh.

Nigeria has only 450,000 telephone lines.

"We also found that 15 percent of callers were living with people who have contracted the HIV," says Akin-Jimoh.

Bola Kusemiju, country Director of the John Hopkins University Centre for Communications Programme, says the hotline project is reminiscent of another collaborative effort by his institution and USAID 10 years ago that encouraged child spacing and increased the contraceptive prevalence rate in Nigeria.

Kusemiju says the hotline service would be promoted through a multimedia approach and that a minimum of between 20 to 25 calls are anticipated each day.

Although the 24-hour service is primarily focused on the sprawling city of Lagos with an estimated 12 million people and an HIV/AIDS prevalent rate of 6.7 percent, callers are expected from other youths across the vast West African country.

Akin-Jimoh says YEF plans to expand the service to include four youth organisations, a teaching hospital and 32 referral sites. The telephone lines will be managed by 24 youths, trained in counselling.

The referral sites will comprise non-governmental organisations (NGOs), hospitals, specialist centres and clinical laboratories offering treatment, counselling or HIV/AIDS tests.

Akin-Jimoh says young people between the ages of 10 and 24 constitute 39.9 percent of the country's population. And that 60 percent of the AIDS cases reported in 1998 in Nigeria were within the age group of 15 to 24 years.

"The median age at first intercourse, according to the 1990 National Demographic and Health Survey was 16.6 years, while one third of women had had their first sexual intercourse by the age of 15", she explains.

"AIDS hotlines are effective components of various information and behaviour change programmes...they help increase HIV/AIDS awareness and knowledge and reduce myths" about the disease, says Akin-Jimoh.

Aminat Ndalolo, the minister of state for health, says Nigerian adolescents and youths need to be saved from the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS.

"Few adolescents take measures to prevent the consequences of unprotected sex and many are likely to have multiple partners," Ndadolo says. According to her, careless attitude contributes to the steady rise, particularly among youths, in the incidence of HIV infection.

She calls upon the private sector to join in the campaign against the disease to "ensure that our future leaders are protected from the HIV/AIDS scourge."

Underlying the minister's call to involve the private sector, Kusemiju also urged key players in the telecommunications sector to provide free telephone services for the programme.

That's a tall order in a nation where telecommunications service is poor. Although the government slashed the cost of a telephone line to 15,000 naira (about 110 U.S. Dollars) from over 500 U.S. Dollars, applicants wait for more than three years for a line from the government-owned Nigeria Telecommunications.

Private telecommunication companies offer speedy connection but costs as much as 90,000 naira (about 800 U.S. Dollars), far too expensive for most Nigerians, 70 percent of whom live on less than one U.S. Dollar a day.

The recent introduction of the Global Mobile System (GSM) have not been of much help. GSM costs as high as 700 U.S. Dollars per connection. Kusemiju believes "Nigeria still has a window of opportunity to curb the spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic", which afflicts 25 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa.
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