THE ABCS OF HIV PREVENTION:
Recently, Anambra State was ranked 5th in HIV prevalence and transmission in Nigeria. That's bad enough!
Since Composite Health Diagnostic Laboratory is situated in Nnewi, Anambra State, It behoves on us as part of our social responsibility to educate the public on how to prevent HIV infection.
Preventing HIV is as simple as ABC if you strictly follow the rules. Hence, we have the acronym: The ABCs of HIV Prevention.
A: stands for ABSTINENCE. This is for young people in primary school, secondary school, colleges of education, polytechnics and universities. You need to understand that you have a future to protect. Sex is worth waiting for. Please ZIP UP! Avoid having sex with anyone until you get married.
Understand that there is a purpose for sex. Sex is not just for fun and pleasure, it's essentially for procreation. A lot of criminal abortions happen daily because so many young people want the pleasure in sex, but they don't want the pregnancy and responsibilities that follow the pleasure. The primary purpose of sex is for procreation and when purpose is not known, abuse is inevitable.
B: Stands for BE FAITHFUL. This is especially for married couples. Be faithful to your one faithful partner. If husband and wife are faithful to each other, there's no way HIV will creep into their matrimonial bed. It's extra-marital affairs that bring HIV to the matrimonial bed. And what's heartbreaking is that once the man is infected(as is mostly the case), he infects his wife with the incurable HIV virus.
A word of caution here: There's nothing like being faithful to your boyfriend or girlfriend. Nobody owes you faithfulness if you are not legally married to that person. Also, there's nothing like being faithful to a married man as his side-chick. That's a waste of faithfulness.
C: Stands for CONDOM USE. This is for single people who sometimes say that: "body no be firewood". Or married people who have extra-marital affairs. If you must have sex with someone who is not your spouse, please use condom CONSISTENTLY AND CORRECTLY. Nowadays, we have female condoms for women and male condoms for men and they are both cheap and easy to use. If you no fit hold body, abeg use condom.
S: Stands for SAFE SEX. This is especially for young people especially teenagers who are discovering their sexuality. Safe sex is anything a man and a woman(or two persons of the opposite sex) do intimately that did not involve sexual intercourse. That includes: kissing, necking, petting, rubbing of body, and yes, even masturbation.
Masturbation (a..k.a self love) is safe sex because it will not give you HIV. It's one of the issues where science is at variance with religion/spirituality. While science encourages masturbation as a safe sex practice that helps to prevent HIV spread, religion regards it as sin.
What we believe as biomedical scientists is that God will forgive you for masturbating and you will remain HIV free. But if you committed fornication or adultery with an HIV infected person without condom, God will forgive you for the fornication/adultery, but you will remain an HIV infected person because HIV has no cure. So, if masturbation on one hand and fornication/adultery without condom with an HIV infected person on the other hand are both evils you must choose from, which will you choose?
So, there you have it; the ABCs of HIV Prevention. If everyone in Anambra State in particular and Nigeria in general strictly practises these simple ways of HIV prevention, HIV will soon be a part of history in our society.
Izu Godson Udemezue
Biomedical Scientist and senior partner at
Composite Health Diagnostic Laboratory (CHDL), Nnewi.
P.S. CHDL NNEWI in partnership with FAMILY HEALTH INTERNATIONAL(FHI) offers FREE HIV TEST to all residents of Nnewi and its environs. Please avail yourself of the opportunity to know your HIV status. It's FREE OF CHARGE. Thank you.
