Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - Monday August 23, 1999
Matthew Tostevin

But there are few other hopes for the multiplying numbers of victims as the epidemic quietly extends its hold on Africa's most populous nation. "I was diagnosed about two weeks ago and so was my son. It is him I'm really worried about," said Umar, a 38-year-old Muslim who works as an oil refinery technician.

"I have already started to notice his loss of weight. I particularly pray that the Almighty God cures him," he said.

NIGERIA COULD BE BIGGEST DISASTER

So far rates of HIV infection in Nigeria as a whole are lower than in southern and eastern Africa and even some other states on the West African coast. But medics say that with a general lack of awareness among many of Nigeria's 108 million people and an ineffective official program to slow the spread of the deadly virus, Nigeria's could be a bigger disaster than anywhere else.

"The problem is now getting out of hand because we are seeing more and more people who are infected, more and more people who are desperate to get treatment, to get drugs," said Professor Femi Soyinka who runs a help project for infected people.

Soyinka said that over the past year the number of those seeking help from his Nigerian Network on Ethics, Law, HIV/AIDS Prevention, Support and Care had tripled.

Projections by the United Nations AIDS program on the basis of studies carried out in 1995 to 1996 suggest the infection rate could be more than six percent of the sexually active population, aged between 15 and 49.

If current rates of infection continue unabated, that will rise to nearly 10 percent by 2005.

"With more than 4.1 million people already infected that is more than the population infected in many southern African countries," said Kenneth Ofosu-Barko, adviser to the United Nations Program on AIDS.

"If a disease affects predominantly the productive sectors of society you know what that means, the trained sector will be gradually wiped out. "There will be a shortage of teachers, of farm hands. Now it's entered the executive class, boardrooms are going to start dwindling, by implication it will affect the economy," Ofosu-Barko told Reuters.

DEMOCRACY OFFERS HOPE FOR CHANGE

Fighting the spread of the disease was not a priority for Nigeria's succession of military rulers, whose rule was characterized by corruption, human rights abuses and general economic decline.

Doctors hope that will change under Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria's first elected president for 15 years, who mentioned the need to battle AIDS as an urgent need in his revised budget.

The AIDS-related death of Afrobeat singer Fela Anikulapo-Kuti in 1997 temporarily highlighted the disease and figures show signs of increases in condom sales, but awareness outside the urban centers is often minimal. "I go to the field and when I talk about AIDS, some may know that there is something and they pray they don't get it but that is all they know about it," said Soyinka.

For those who are infected there is little prospect of anything but an early death, with first signs of the disease usually appearing some two to four years after infection -- generally earlier than in the West.

Most patients cannot afford drugs to treat opportunistic infections that take advantage of the weakened immune system let alone dream of expensive multi-drug therapies that can reduce the level of the virus in the body.

The result is that ever more people turning to herbal and spiritual miracle healers, whose claims are spread by word of mouth and in the pages of popular newspapers.

"It's very dangerous, people believe that they are cured so they continue to infect other people," said Soyinka. "They are doing a lot of harm to the people, but nobody cares."
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