Abuja — So much has been woven around figures. Statistics on infections with HIV/AIDS are reeled out daily, as if they are what should matter. It is time to dwell on issues of how to make those living with HIV/AIDS live meaningful lives and make it less of a burden for the affected. It is also time to focus energies on preventing further infections.

Those are some of the conclusions deduced from resource persons after a four-day training workshop for journalists which took place in Jos last week.

The workshop, organised by the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) between November 16 and 19, was meant to sensitise media practitioners on how to contribute more appropriately to the fight against HIV and AIDS.

"There is the need to mentor media practitioners to respond more strategically for impact mitigation in the war for AIDS," NACA wrote on its agenda sheet.

An advocacy jingle reads, 'AIDS does not discriminate, do you?'

The workshop, a regional forum attended mainly by media practitioners from North Central states and the Federal Capital Territory, drummed it on the participants that discrimination steeped in stigmatization is still the most significant threat to living with the epidemic positively.

Participants could not help accepting that training workshops have much use on subjects such as the HIV /AIDS, a subject which dwells more in the consciousness of the Nigerian public than any other but which is probably also the least understood.

Because most Nigerians do not understand HIV/AIDS they isolate themselves from it. 'It can't be me, God forbids,' is a typical response to it by Nigerians who happen to be uninfected. They rarely realize that they are at least affected even if not infected.

"We are all affected because the time and money spent to visit the infected in the hospital or accompany home the corpse of one who dies of AIDS. Would it not have been preferable to do something more cheering and rewarding," said a resource person who sought to explain why the fight against HIV and AIDS should be a concerted one.

It is odd but true that many who live in denial of AIDS and adopt the 'It can't be me' attitude actually are already infected. If it is said that more than half the population of United States who live with HIV are not aware of it, how much more striking will the story of Nigeria be!

The point was raised severally during the workshop that Nigerians have a long way to go in the area of voluntary testing. It was evident that most at the workshop were indeed unaware of their status and were afraid to do the test that could reveal their status. It was also evident that those who know their status prefer invariably to keep it hidden for fear of stigmatization.

So, denial, fear of HIV test, unwillingness to disclose HIV status due to fear of stigmatization, were some of the realities of the epidemic still ruling the country that were in evidence during the four-day workshop.

Much, it was emphasized, depend on the mass media, to enlighten Nigerians on how to handle HIV/AIDS.

The consensus is that media practitioners are the voice of the people. They have access to people in government who make policies and who implement them and are for that reason able to intimate policy makers on what affect the people.

Journalists, it was emphasized, should share as equal partners the responsibility to shift information to the corridors of power and receive feedback.

It was emphasized that the media had not been playing this role adequately. It was also accepted that part of the reason would be that the media do not even understand the issues well enough, which was what prompted the workshop in the first place.

The Director General of NACA, Professor Idoko who was represented by the agency's Head of Corporate Communications, Mr Sam Achibong, explained the concept of the workshop, "We need the media to know more about HIV and AIDS, to know things that are important and helpful to efforts at curbing it so that they can inform the public accordingly.

Reporters should focus on human angle stories which better tells and rightfully depicts the true situation on ground to educate the public. Journalist should in their report intimate and inform the public on the dynamic nature of the virus, while dishing out news that will help everyone, Archibong said

People are dying of AIDS, yes, but what the public really needs to know is how to come to the assistance of the infected and how to avoid infection in the course of their own daily pursuits. We need publicity that will make the fight against AIDS succeed. NACA is a catalyst. We exist to harness resources and ginger concerted efforts against AIDS. We want the spread of such knowledge in order to make it less and less necessary for people to come to NACA."

The thrust of what the mass media can do came into evidence as speaker after speaker gave situation report and facts on what is and what could be.

On the matter of stigmatisation, it was stressed that Nigerians need first of all to realise that HIV/AIDS is a health condition like any other and does not have to signify the end of the infected. To this effect, stories of how it is becoming increasingly easy to live with it were shared. Expositions on the realities and possibilities of how infected couple are having and can be helped by medical science to have perfectly healthy children were particularly instructive and encouraging.