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HIV/AIDS infected Nigerians may hit 15m by 2010, says
UNDP
By Ntai Bagshaw
and
Onche Odeh, Lagos
Due to the present scale of HIV/AIDS
infections in Nigeria and government’s limited capacity to tackle it, the
number of Nigerians that would be infected by the scourge may hit 15 million by
2010.
The United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP), which disclosed this in Abuja as the world marked this year’s
World Aids Day today, said HIV/AIDS has leapt from just a mere health issue to
a major, multi-dimensional development challenge.
However as the world celebrates
world’s AID Day, women are taking centre stage in the fight against the
scourge as the have been identified as the most vulnerable sex to HIV
transmission and those that bear the greatest brunt in cases of infections.
Professor Babtunde Oshotimehin, Chairman,
National Committee on AIDS (NACA) who spoke in Lagos in this year’s
celebration on the theme “Women, Girls and HIV AIDS said “the theme
is significant when you know that the females are most affected by HIV/AIDS and
there seems to be a “feminisation” of the epidemic. There is need
to focus on this.”
Releasing this year’s National
Human Development Report titled, “HIV and AIDS: A Challenge to
Sustainable Human Development”, as part of activities to mark the day,
UNDP projected that the number of infected Nigerians will, by the turn of the
decade, constitute about 15 to 25 per cent of adults, which is close to the
rates currently being experienced in Southern Africa.
“By 2010, about nine million
Nigerian children could be orphaned, bed occupancy arising from AIDS-related
illnesses could rise by 50 to 60 per cent in some communities and life
expectancy, which is presently at 57 years, could be reduced by 26
years,” the report said.
UNDP revealed that the effects of
increasing prevalence rates are beginning to take its tool on human development
at national, community, family and individual levels across the country.
“HIV and AIDS are already depleting the workforce, stretching health
facilities to braking-point, and adversely affecting education, productivity,
food security, social harmony and national security, and thereby significantly
compounding poverty in the country,” the report said.
It stressed that although women and
youths are the most vulnerable groups, the epidemic is spreading across all
geo-political zones of the country and all segments of the population, not just
confined to high-risk groups such as commercial sex workers, homosexuals and
drug users.
Emphasising also that the gap in the
prevalence rate between urban and rural areas is narrowing, the report warned that
if the current pattern of infection is not halted, the prevalence rate could
more than triple soon, “putting the nation on the worst hit map, and
seriously compounding her development challenges as well as impairing her
ability to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).”
The orgnisation fingered poverty, harmful
social practices that encourage multiple sexual partners, and unintended
consequences of urbanisation as leading causative factors in the continuing
spread of HIV/AIDS in the country. It submitted that it is possible to contain
the epidemic if there is enough political will and stronger partnership among
all stakeholders and called for more commitments and resources to tackle the
scourge.
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