A CURE FOR HIV/AIDS YET?

HIV/AIDS is a killer disease which has no cure, it causes the lowering of the body immune system and makes it impossible to fight certain infections. Since the first reported case of HIV infection in Nigeria in 1986 there has been an effort to combat the spread of the virus considering the large population of the country.

In 2001, the Nigerian National HIV prevalence rate was at 5.8%, dropping to 4.1% in 2014 with a number of states recording prevalence up to 10%. Currently the prevalence rate within the age of 15-19, 20-24 cohorts the higher percentage, it is against this backdrop that the Federal Government of Nigeria through the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), in collaboration with the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and other development partners deemed it fit to establish the ANTI-AIDs CDS Group, Known as the HIV/AIDS Fighters group to be able to reach out to youths in schools and communities who are the most vulnerable.

The club members are trained on camp as Peer Education Trainers (PET) where they are expected to adopt schools or community and selects students to be trained and mentored as peer educators across classes giving them factual information about reproductive health and HIV which will help them in making informed decisions.

The club is also expected to organize outreach activities to the communities of primary assignment which focus on prevention messages, encouraging uptake of HIV Counseling and Testing (HCT), treatment adherence, stigma reduction campaign and care support for PLWHAs and PABA.

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