Reliable statistics by UNAIDS/WHO show that HIV/AIDS infection in Cameroon is permanently rising beyond any campaign strategy so far used in the country. According to the 2008 report on the AIDS epidemic in Cameroon, the number of people (15-49 years) living with HIV in 2005, 2006 and 2007 remained at 540,000.

Meanwhile, AIDS deaths in adults and children of the same age group changed from 43,000 in 2005 to 39,000 last year. This statistics contrast sharply with those of the National AIDS Control Committee, NACC.

As indicated in the NACC's National Strategic Plan, NSP, for 2006-2010, 505,000 persons were living with the disease in 2005, 61 percent of this number was women. Youths being hardest hit by the scourge witnessed predominance of the infection in urban areas than rural.

Since the incidence of HIV in the country in 1986, some 48,700 have died of the disease, 40,000 of which are adults and 8,700 of them children.Regionally, women of the Northwest top the chart with 11.7 percent, Southwest 11 percent, and Yaounde 8 percent.

In men, the East Region recorded 7.6 percent, Northwest 5.2 percent, West 5.2, Southwest 5.1. The prevalence rate in pregnant women was higher for women.At the end of 2001, the total number of adults and children who died of the disease stood at 53,000, according to ONUSIDA/UNAIDS.

The reports variously attribute this failure to messages which have hardly been tailored to suit particular target groups and attitudes of some Cameroonians are certainly not the best and HIV/AIDS infection is below expectation.

Also, access to anti-retrovirals to children has stayed insignificantly at 3 percent coverage.

No Care To Orphans

Access to treatment by children remained as low as only 470 having access to anti-retrovirals, giving a total coverage of just 3 percent.Up to 2005 access to treatment by orphans was yet to gain grounds as figures remain negligible.

This means that less of social support was given to AIDS orphans and vulnerable children, "who continue to go back to the streets thus rendering them more vulnerable to services and exploitation," according to NSP. Some 122,670 AIDS orphans were recorded in 2005.

Risk Groups

The reports general outline priority groups which include; youths of 15-24 years as the most vulnerable, while the forces of law and order, military, sex workers, truck drivers and the riverine population along the Chad-Cameroon pipeline are high risk groups.

In these groups, the infection was principally transmitted through unprotected heterosexual intercourse, but mother-child transmission remained equally preoccupying. Through this transmission, infection rate was 69,000 in 2001 and 43,000 by the end of 2003 (UNAIDS, 2003).

Current Efforts

To meet up with lapses identified in the previous strategies, NACC's current strategies aim at strengthening efforts towards achieving greater access to treatment.The new plan is based on six strategies targeting four main groups: youths, women, orphans and vulnerable children and high risk groups.

The objective is to reduce the rate of new infection, boost access to treatment and care to persons living with HIV/AIDS in children and reduce the global impact of the disease in orphans and vulnerable children.

Some FCFA 497.5 billion has been earmarked to be used in fighting the AIDS in Cameroon for the period 2006-2010.Efforts were made in the preventing the disease as well as in caring with persons living with the disease.

The campaigns have, however, recorded some successes. The effectiveness of the campaigns shows that more than 70 percent of youths from 15-24 years knew how to prevent the transmission as against 50 in 1998.

Sixteen to 47 percent of women and 31-57 percent of boys in this age group used condoms during sex between 1998 and 2004. 600 patients had access to Anti-retrovirals in 2001, 13,503 by September 2005 with a total coverage of 18 percent.