Panafrican News Agency - December 1, 2001
Linda Asante Agyei, PANA Correspondent

He had thought that AIDS was a "spiritual sickness" associated with a category of people, especially women

"I therefore counted myself out, but I have been proved wrong," confessed young man "Kofi," who is HIV positive.

"I contracted the virus on my 24th birthday after spending the night with a girl. That was my first sexual contact," the 28-year-old man said.

He warns there are many young men like him out there who have had similar misconceptions about the disease and are being infected ignorantly.

"This is the main reason everybody should join the fight against the disease," Kofi counsels.

For more than two decades, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, one of the most dreadful diseases that have defied medical cure, has continued to wreak havoc on both rich and poor countries, hitting mainly the young, virile and resourceful population.

A few years ago, more women and children were at the frontline of the fight, leaving behind men, who play an important role in the spread of the disease.

For the past two years, the focus of the global anti-AIDS campaign now co-ordinated by the UNAIDS, has set aside every December 1 as World AIDS Day.

Last year the theme was: "Men make a difference," and this year, the theme is: "I care... do you?"

All over the world, women find themselves at risk of HIV infection because of their lack of power to determine where and how to have sex.

Although women are equally infected, men in general, tend to have more sexual partners than women, thereby increasing the risk of their primary partners contracting HIV.

Young men, according to UNAIDS, are also at more risk than older ones.

About one in every four people with HIV is a young man under 25 years and those in this age group account for at least 50 percent of those who become infected after infancy.

A cursory glance at the number of people falling victim to HIV/AIDS in Africa as a whole and Ghana in particular, reveals how fast the disease is spreading especially among the young people.

According to UNAIDS and WHO, over 36.1 million people were living with HIV/AIDS as at the end of 2000 world-wide, with sub-Saharan Africa accounting for over 70 percent.

Some 21.8 million people have already died of the disease World-wide.

Meanwhile, Africa remains the only region in the world where more women are infected than men.

The cultural beliefs and expectations of some countries heighten men's own vulnerability.

In 1986, when the disease first surfaced in Ghana, fewer than five cases were reported, but by the end of the year 2000, a cumulative figure of about 46,000 cases had been reported.

The female-to-male ratio stood at 6:1 in 1987, narrowing to 2:1 by September 2000.

But this represents only those who utilised government health facilities.

World-wide, over 70 percent of HIV infection occurs through heterosexual sex, 10 percent between men, and of the five percent that acquire it through injection of drugs, four-fifths are men.

In Ghana, heterosexual sex remains the most predominant mode of transmission, accounting for 80 percent of all infections.

Mother-to-child transmission and transmission through blood and blood products, accounts for 15 percent and five percent respectively.

Experts say this calls for a compelling need to direct HIV/AIDS education at "risky sexual behaviours".

"From all indications, both men and women stand an almost equal chance of spreading the disease since the adult prevalence rate in Ghana is put at three percent," said Phyllis Antwi of the School of Public Health, University of Ghana, Legon.

According to Kweku Yeboah, Programme Manager of the National AIDS Control Programme: "The peak age for males in Ghana is 30-34 whilst that for women is 25-29. But there is a new phenomenon where about 60 percent of all the regions are reporting peak ages among men in the older groups.

"The proportion of males who are reported in the age group beyond 35 years is increasing, indicating that old men are becoming increasingly infected and probably infecting younger females as described in the 'sugar daddy syndrome," he added.

UNAIDS Executive Director, Peter Piot, has described the AIDS situation in Africa as catastrophic.

"One of the greatest causes for concern is that over the next few years, the epidemic is bound to get worse before it gets better," he warned.

Men, broadly speaking, are expected to be physically strong, emotionally robust, daring and virile, which translate into ways of their thinking and behaving, and this endangers the health and well-being in their sex behaviour.

In some African countries, boys are brought up to believe that "real men do not get sick," therefore, they see themselves as invulnerable to illness or risk. This is reflected in the under-use of health services by men.

Men who migrate for work and live away from their families may pay for sex and use substances particularly alcohol, as a way to cope with the stress and loneliness of living away from home.

These place them at high risk of contracting HIV.

Since men are key to reducing HIV transmission and have the power to change the course of the AIDS epidemic, the theme for this year's AIDS Day, is considered a wake-up call for more men to be encouraged in the fight at national and global levels.

It is clear that AIDS is a development crisis and there is a compelling evidence that the trend of infection, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, would have a profound impact on child and maternal mortality as well as economic growth.

What needs to be done is to persuade men to change their perception, attitudes and behaviour that can significantly stem the spread of HIV transmission.
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