World AIDS Day 2022: Putting Ourselves to the Test: Achieving Equity to End HIV

Do you remember the first time you heard about HIV/AIDS? How did you feel knowing that such an infection existed?

When I heard about it, I was so scared that I refused to touch anything that had the slightest possibility of cutting me.

I ensured I didn’t share needles, razor blades, nail clippers or other sharp objects with anyone else. I’m pretty sure that there were many others like me that were highly conscious about it like I was.

However, it seems like the effort put into creating awareness for HIV/AIDS is not as much as it was years ago and this may have inadvertently created a kind of laxity around the topic of HIV/AIDS.

UNICEF reports that Nigeria has up to 190,950 HIV/AIDS infections every year and that happens to be the second highest rate in the world. This number can be drastically reduced when people are well aware of how to keep themselves from contracting HIV, how to access care and when barriers to HIV testing are eliminated.

Barriers to HIV testing

To know whether you have HIV or not, you need to carry out an HIV test at a hospital, however, there are some hindrances that keep people from seeking the care that they need.
Here are some barriers to HIV testing in Nigeria:

• Fear that those that know about the test may judge them
• Logistical inability to access healthcare centres
• Some people don’t know where to go to carry out the test
• Fear of the HIV test procedure (venipuncture)
• Fear of the test result.
• Inability to afford treatment
  

To overcome these barriers, the following strategies can be adopted:

• Providing alternatives to puncturing a vein to draw blood.
• Providing more testing options like home self-testing, rapid testing and urine testing
• Providing the option for pretest counselling
• Test results can be disclosed over phone calls to encourage people to find out their HIV statuses.
  

How to prevent contracting HIV

HIV can be transmitted mostly through unprotected intercourse and sharing syringes, needles, or other equipment used for intravenous injections.

To prevent contracting HIV, you can consider the following strategies:

• Abstinence
• Don’t share needles and other sharp objects with infected people.
• HIV prevention medicines:
  - Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP)
  - Post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP).
  

How to access HIV care

To access HIV care in Nigeria, all you need to do is to visit the nearest primary healthcare centre in your locality and request counselling or an HIV test. The best course of action to take based on the result will then be made known to you.

How to support someone living with HIV

Learning of a friend’s HIV diagnosis can be life-changing for them and change how you see them or relate to them. However, not much has to change.

If you have a friend or family member that has been diagnosed with HIV, here are some ways you can support them:

• Listen and offer support: Don’t be quick to ask how they got infected. Instead, do the activities you used to engage in before their diagnosis and talk about things you used to talk about. Also, let them know that you see them as the same person before you became aware of the diagnosis and that you are available for a conversation about it whenever they’re ready.
• Educate yourself: Learn as much as you can about HIV - what HIV is, how it can be transmitted, how it cannot be transmitted and how it can be treated. This will help you relate with them better.
• Encourage them to get treatment and stick to the medication as prescribed: It could be quite difficult to get started with HIV medication, however, the benefits of starting early are immense. By starting treatment with antiretroviral therapy (ART) early, it is possible to reduce the amount of HIV in the blood to a level that is undetectable and this can not only guarantee a long and healthy life but also eliminate the possibility of transmitting it to others.

If you are at risk of contracting HIV (e.g. if you’re romantically involved with an HIV-positive individual) it is important for you to get tested first and if you are negative, you can get started on PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) to keep yourself from getting HIV.

What you can do today

• Get tested regularly to know your HIV status
• Volunteer at healthcare centres that may be understaffed
• Go on outreaches to communities that are less likely to have access to information they need about HIV/AIDS
• Show your support for people living with HIV on social media
  

On World AIDS day today, I hope that we all show support for those living with HIV/AIDS and unite to fight against HIV in whatever capacity that we can.

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