HIV/AIDS awareness

HIV/AIDS awareness

Despite the spirited campaigns by various HIV/AIDS awareness, the spread of HIV has not been effectively contained. ELSA AMONDI tries to find out how effective they make us aware

ROSE Atieno, a 27-year-old mother of three walks to a dispensary in Chiga, which is 5 km from her home. At the dispensary, she receives her treatment and is then tested for HIV. After a few hours of waiting, the results are out. She keeps that to herself. She walks away, doubting the results because her husband has not had the same test.

Rose, like many other expectant mothers in that rural community is the only one who can be tested for the virus.

James Onyango, a 22 year old bicycle operator says he has no time to go to a VCT center which is several kilometers away in Kisumu town. He says he cannot afford to loose his customers. Furthermore, the AIDS awareness campaigners have never explained to him why he should go to a VCT center. When they visited the village twice in 2004,they were given free packets of condoms. He says a day after the distribution, the village paths were littered with used condoms.

Dinah Achieng, a social worker in the village adds that the youth do not gain from Aids awareness because the existing awareness groups do not give the details on how the disease spreads or how to prevent it. Instead, they distribute condoms haphazardly to the youth and don’t even explain how they are used.

It is worth noting that this village, like several other villages, is loosing and will continue to loose youth to the deadly virus, because ignorance is widespread. Awareness groups are charged with the responsibility of making the general population aware.

If it will mean door-to-door campaign, well and good for the youth. Educating the people in the rural areas will make them less vulnerable. It is also sad to note that people in rural areas have no access to VCT centers nearby. This implies that infected individuals may be spreading the virus without knowing. This calls for proper allocation of resources for effective delivery of health services.

For the sake of economic growth of our rural areas, the youth must be involved in the war against the spread of HIV Aids.

The writer is a graduate teacher at Dr. Aloo Gumbo Secondary School in Nyando District.