Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - Friday November 30, 2001
D'Arcy Doran
"I was very, very sick last December," Ahanefule said. "If I stood, a breeze would blow me over."
The hopes of 3.47 million Nigerians, like Ahanefule, are pinned to the start of Africa's most ambitious generic AIDS treatment program which has been delayed for more than three months until December 10.
About one in 11 of the world's 40 million people infected with HIV/AIDS are in Nigeria, government figures released on Friday showed. About one in 17 Nigerians, or 5.8 percent, aged between 15 and 49 are infected with HIV/AIDS in the country of more than 110 million.
"Nigeria is the most populous country to have crossed the five percent prevalence rate," Stella Iwuagwu, executive director of the Center for the Right to Health said. "That five percent prevalence rate is called the threshold of disaster because from that point the epidemic begins to grow at an exponential rate."
For those already infected, the drugs are their best hope. Ahanefule said her life was saved by courier packages from the Red Hot AIDS charity and the Presbyterian Church of New York. The packages contain drug "cocktails" that keep the virus inside her from replicating and have prolonged her life.
"In January when I started (the anti-retroviral therapy) and without being told I looked at myself and knew I had come back to life," she told Reuters.
FIRED FROM JOB
Ahanefule has experienced the worst of Nigeria's HIV/AIDS stigma. She was fired from her job as a nurse at a private Lagos hospital when she tested positive for HIV during pregnancy.
When she had a miscarriage, her former employer refused to treat her. Ahanefule took the hospital to court but the judge refused to allow her into the courtroom, fearing those in the court could catch AIDS by just being there. An appeal court has since overruled that judge and she is awaiting her day in court.
She now counsels other women with HIV/AIDS out of a Lagos clinic, where many are waiting for Nigeria to deliver on its promise of cheap anti-retroviral drugs.
But 10 days away from the start of the program, the Nigerian AIDS Alliance support organization said none of its members have been told they will receive the much-anticipated drugs or even where the distribution site will be.
Minister of State for Health Amina Ndalolo told reporters at an AIDS Day news briefing the government had made "modest strides" in bringing the AIDS epidemic under control in the past year, citing an AIDS summit hosted by Nigeria last April and the delayed generic drugs program.
The government said it will start the program in 18 regional centers and gradually scale up the program to 100 centers serving 10,000 patients.
"A limited number of patients will be enrolled for the treatment in the first three months in order to allow the implementers to acquire enough skill in handling the drugs," Ndalolo said.
DILAPIDATED HEALTH SYSTEM
Nigeria's HIV/AIDS patients are skeptical of the third government announcement for the programs since the summit.
"It's more words than action," Ahanefule said. "They organize programs, they make a lot of noise, they do a lot of promises, but after all is said and done it just ends there."
Experts said the delay in the anti-retroviral drug program is further evidence that Nigeria's dilapidated health system is unable to cope with the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
"They are still planning, they are still verifying, they are still doing a lot of research, meanwhile people are dying," Iwuagwu said.
Iwuagwu said the quality of care in Nigerian hospitals was bad before the AIDS epidemic hit and has been deteriorating ever since, with chronic doctors and nurses strikes closing hospitals.
"They are working in a system where it is even difficult to find running water or soap to wash their hands," Iwuagwu said. "There is no electricity to operate with, there are no drugs, it is very discouraging."
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