Nigerians Use Hope, Determination to Fight Stigma of AIDS

Yinka Jegede, a 22-year-old Nigerian nursing student, tested positive for HIV four years ago and endured painful discrimination in her final year of university studies. She has since overcome the social stigma surrounding the disease in her country and has committed herself to increasing awareness about HIV and AIDS throughout Africa. "At the beginning, the society was so hard on me. Even in school. But now I have gotten over all that now," she said on the sidelines of a recent press conference organized by Nigeria's National AIDS Alliance (NAA).

Other Nigerians have also encountered discrimination based on their HIV status. Maria Farouk tested positive for HIV in 1998 after marrying the coordinator of NAA, who publicly identified himself as a carrier of the virus. "I told my friend that I am HIV-positive and I am not ashamed about it," she said. "My confidence and hope was rekindled when I traveled to Durban in South Africa and saw HIV/AIDS carriers like me living their normal lives unbothered." Farouk is expecting her first child later this year. "I believe in God and I have decided not to succumb to the fear and stigma associated with the disease," she said.

Mohammed Farouk, Maria's husband, said the rights of Nigerians were being "violated with impunity," and that a doctor whom the army believes can cure soldiers suffering from AIDS is a fake. Farouk said he was one of 30 soldiers who tested positive for HIV and sent to an Abuja-based doctor who claimed he could cure the disease. He described the physician as a fraud, out "to defraud the federal government of Nigeria." Of the 30 soldiers, 12 have died while the health of the 18 others has shown no sign of improvement despite having taken the doctor's "vaccines" for the past two years.

Jegede and others have traveled to several parts of Nigeria and South Africa to assist in AIDS counseling and to reduce the stigma that surrounds HIV-positive status in those countries. The virus is known to affect 5.4 percent of the adult population in Nigeria, which has a total population of about 120 million. And according to World Health Organization figures, some 70 percent of the world's 36.1 million HIV or AIDS cases are in sub-Saharan Africa.

Back to other CDC news for April 10, 2001

Previous Updates