Onimisi Alao
1 December 2007
The world is observing today as World AIDS Day, a day set aside to reflect on the dreaded HIV/AIDS that has claimed over 33.2 million victims so far.
World Vision, a non-governmental organisation like many other anti-AIDS bodies, wants the world to use the day and focus on the plight of children whom the body estimated that about 6,000 children lose a parent to AIDS on daily basis.
December 1 has been set aside to remind the world about the scourge of HIV/AIDS.
World Vision is executing a global vigil to focus the mind on the AIDS scourge that has caused so much destruction to humanity, particularly children, one of the groups most vulnerable to the AIDS virus.
The observance of the day started in 1988 when world health ministers met in Toronto, United States, and decided that the whole world should set it apart to dwell on the AIDS pandemic and review actions against it.
Two decades after the Toronto resolution, the general statistics about AIDS reveal much of what it has left on its trail since the world first knew of it in the 1980s. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) released figures 11 days ago in which it concluded that AIDS remained a leading cause of untimely deaths around the world.
The press release, dated November 21, 2007, reads, in part, "New data show global HIV prevalence has levelled off and that the number of new infections has fallen, in part as a result of the impact of HIV programmes. However, in 2007, 33.2 million people were estimated to be living with HIV, 2.5 million people became newly infected and 2.1 million people died of AIDS.
"There were an estimated 1.7 million new HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa in 2007; a significant reduction since 2001. However, the region remains most severely affected. An estimated 22.5 million people living with HIV, or 68 percent of the global total, are in Sub-Sahara Africa," the body said.
Miscellaneous figures covering different times in the life of the HIV/AIDS phenomenon as obtained from different sources include the following:
Number of AIDS deaths in 2006 is 2.9 million, made up of 2.6 million adults and 380,000 children under the age of 15 years. Number of orphaned children by AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa at the end of 2003 was 12 million. By 2003, women accounted for nearly 50 per cent of all people living with HIV worldwide and for 57 percent in sub-Saharan Africa. Young people of between 15 and 24 years account for half of all new HIV infections worldwide. An "alarming" increase in the number of HIV positive children has similarly been reported, with 90 per cent of them contacting the virus from their mothers.
Other sources of figures indicate that in Nigeria, an estimated three million people were living with HIV by the end of 2005. Of the number, 220 000 died; within the same year (2005). By the end of the year in view, 930 000 AIDS orphans were living in Nigeria.
Despite seemingly wide publicity on the AIDS scourge and campaigns on preventive measures, incidence of new infections remains high
An authority on HIV and management in Nigeria, Alhaji Umaru Sule Garkida said during the week when more people were seeking treatment against HIV from him.
Garkida, who claimed to possess natural herb remedies against HIV told Weekly Trust: "As long as people remain sexually active, they go having what they call fun. The quality of condom they rely on is often unreliable, so they keep contracting the AIDS virus. The best preventive measure remains abstinence, which people appear to have problems with."
The claims by Garkida and other well-known unorthodox practitioners like him have been a most controversial trend in the fight against AIDS in Nigeria. While they will insist that the medicine they offer is truly effective against the dreaded disease, practitioners of western medicine and the health authorities have also insisted that no cure of HIV has been found.
So, despite their own convictions, the herbal practitioners have learnt to tag along. Garkida said, "Some quarters are uncomfortable with the word cure. Let us all call it management. Let us all continue to manage HIV, as English drugs do.
"If you see a person not responding to my treatment, the person must already be on his way out. The AIDS virus must have eaten too deeply into his organs. But I don't dabble into such hopeless cases when people become irredeemable. Just come on time and you won't remain the same."
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Thank you for your article, "Aids - Still, Motion Without Movement'. As AIDS is so widespread, I am grateful to have more knowledge to reflect upon. I hope I may have the opportunity to be of assistance in finding solutions to this very grave epidemic, both in Canada and in Africa. My cousin died from this disease, and all of our family continue to feel a great loss for David.
I also would like to clarify for the writer of this excellent article: Toronto is not part of the United States. Toronto is the largest city in Canada. We have… [Read Full Text]