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IBEKWE ALEXANDER
IBEKWE ALEXANDER
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AN ADDRESS PRESENTED BY THE CHAIRMAN LOCAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE, HON. IBEKWE ALEXANDER ON THE OPENING CEREMONY OF NATIONAL YOUTH DIALOGUE ON HIV/AIDS (NYDHA 2009) AT EMMAUS HOUSE AWKA, ANAMBRA STATE ON MONDAY 14TH DECEMBER, 2009.

AN ADDRESS PRESENTED BY THE CHAIRMAN LOCAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE, HON. IBEKWE ALEXANDER ON THE OPENING CEREMONY OF NATIONAL YOUTH DIALOGUE ON HIV/AIDS (NYDHA 2009) AT EMMAUS HOUSE AWKA, ANAMBRA STATE ON MONDAY 14TH DECEMBER, 2009.
PROTOCOLS:
It is a special Honor to welcome you all to the first ever National Youth Dialogue on HIV/AIDS (NYDHA 2009) to the State I have worked in HIV for many years. Let me start by expressing my profound gratitude to the Almighty God for sparing our lives and those of our families without which the business of today would have been impossible.
I believe we stand at a pivotal moment in the National response to HIV/AIDS. Only few weeks separate us from the 2010 universal access deadline, and we are not on course to meet universal access targets. We appear to be slipping away even from our existing commitments. After so much progress, it appears that we are poised to accept defeat when victory is still within our grasp. Failure to meet those commitments and keep our promise will have an impact on millions of lives in Nigeria. This we cannot allow to happen.
It is time for our leaders to live up to their promises: it is time for us to Stand up & Take Action”. It is time to stand up and take action for the hundreds of thousands of children born every year with HIV in Nigeria, It is time to stand up and take action for thousands of women and girls by placing sexual and reproductive health decisions not in the hands of their doctors, or their partners or their family members, but in their own hands. This may mean challenging many years of cultural norms, and that will take time, but it is essential to the National response to HIV.
It is time to stand up and take action to fight stigma and discrimination where it counts; not by making vague commitments in political declarations every year, but by putting in place costed, benchmarked programmes, that are grounded in both human rights principles and sound public health, that meet the needs of men who have sex with men, injecting drug users and sex workers. It is time to stand up and take action against tyranny of ignorance and denial. It is time for leaders of all kinds (political, religious, and community) to help move young people in from the margins of society to the center of the National response to HIV. It is time to stand up and take action for political courage and not political expediency, and that means fighting the gender inequality, homophobia and poverty which continue to drive this epidemic.
This National Youth Dialogue is one forum that young people want to use to take an honest look at both the important progress we have made, and the barriers we continue to face in Nigeria.

As I leave this position, I do so knowing that I am part of a much larger movement of individuals who are not content to let things continue as they have in the past. All of you here today, have dedicated our lives to stand up and take action and to change.

Together, let us stand up and take action to ensure that we achieve Universal Access by 2010, let’s redouble our efforts and make our dream come true: We shall overcome this tragedy and stop the epidemic!

On behalf of the Local Organizing Committee, I thank you for being here

December 14, 2009 | 2:33 AM Comments  0 comments

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STIGMA AND DISCRIMINATION AS A BARRIER IN COMPACTING HIV/AIDS
Related to country: Nigeria

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

STIGMA AND DISCRIMINATION AS A BARRIER IN COMPACTING HIV/AIDS

Because HIV/AIDS is associated with behaviors that may be considered socially unacceptable by many people, HIV infection is widely stigmatized. People living with the virus are frequently subject to discrimination and human rights abuses: many have been thrown out of jobs and homes, rejected by family and friends, and some have even been killed. Together, stigma and discrimination constitute one of the greatest barriers in dealing effectively with the epidemic. They discourage governments from acknowledging or taking timely action against AIDS. They deter individuals from finding out about their HIV status. And they inhibit those who know they are infected from sharing their diagnosis and taking action to protect others and from seeking treatment and care for themselves. Experience teaches that a strong Network of people living with HIV/AIDS that affords mutual support and a voice at local and national levels is particularly effective in tackling stigma. There is a need to have a special budget from Federal Government for Network of people living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria both at the National, State and local government level Moreover, the presence of treatment makes this task easier too: where there is hope, people are less afraid of AIDS; they are more willing to be tested for HIV, to disclose their status, and to seek care if necessary. Let us think about bringing treatment to the grass root, let us think of upgrading the health facilities located at the rural area.

March 14, 2009 | 12:13 PM Comments  0 comments

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UNIVERSAL ACCESS TO TREATMENT: PLWHA IN RURAL AREAS HAVE LIMITED ACCESS TO ANTIRETROVIRAL
Related to country: Nigeria

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

UNIVERSAL ACCESS TO TREATMENT: PLWHA IN RURAL AREAS HAVE LIMITED ACCESS TO ANTIRETROVIRAL

PLWHA in rural areas are experiencing increasingly limited access to antiretroviral drugs. People in the rural areas also tend to be more marginalized than those in urban locations. Although most of people living with HIV/AIDS in the country who need antiretroviral access live in rural areas, three-quarters of PLWHA taking the drugs are from urban areas.

PLWHA in rural areas often rely on herbal remedies due to lack of correct information and access to treatment. PLWHA living in the rural area who need antiretroviral find themselves in a quandary because off the distance to urban city and levels of income for a rural household tend to be low, The financial costs associated with antiretroviral go beyond the price of the drugs, the high cost of transportation to health centers means that many low-income PLWHA who need ARV, often take antiretroviral infrequently or not at all.

In addition, stigma and discrimination often prevent people from receiving HIV test or accessing treatment in the rural area. Young people particularly are vulnerable to the virus because they sometimes become sexually active at a young age and are not empowered to make decisions because of a rigidly social structure in the rural area.

There is much need for social structures to impart information to poor rural people so that they know their rights as far as getting tested and counseled. There is need to establish treatment centers in the rural area so that it will be accessible for rural communities. How can we achieve 100% adherence if PLWHA travels for more than two hours to access treatment? Some herbal homes and private hospitals are taking advantage of that on PLWHA in the rural area

NEPWHAN have done well by straightening support groups of PLWHA through capacity building, Office equipment, introduction Income generating activities (IGA) etc. to response to the numerous challenges PLWHA are facing from that area. This has gone a long way to reduce the burden of transportation to treatment centers among PLWHA in that area. But how many PLWHA can this IGA support? More needs to be done and proper decentralizations of treatment centers are urgent need.

March 14, 2009 | 11:48 AM Comments  0 comments

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