  
Nigerian AIDS "cures" hamper prevention efforts
Last Updated: 2001-04-23 9:45:53 EDT (Reuters Health)
LAGOS (Reuters) - Although Nigeria is hosting an African AIDS summit this week, efforts to stem the epidemic are being undermined by the growing number of home-grown "cures," experts say.
Ways to avert an AIDS crisis in Nigeria, the continent's most populous nation, will be discussed at the United Nations-sponsored summit in Abuja from April 25 to 27.
On the eve of the conference, to be attended by former US President Bill Clinton and UN chief Kofi Annan, the state assembly in northern Kano passed a bill endorsing a group claiming a spiritual cure for AIDS.
The assembly's house health committee said last week it had studied clinical data and was satisfied with the cure, which involves smearing honey and petroleum jelly on sufferers and reading verses of the Koran.
More than 60 groups in Nigeria have announced purported cures for AIDS. The semi-official Sunday Times reported that the government had earmarked some $1.7 million for the Nigerian Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Development to test the claims.
AIDS groups have protested, and UNICEF says the claims are blunting efforts to spread the message that AIDS is a killer.
"Whatever has been reported about cures are lies," warned Nsikak Ekpe, President of the advocacy group Nigeria AIDS Alliance, at a news conference earlier this month.
"Our members have been used as guinea pigs for AIDS drugs trials and not one of them came back better or cured," Ekpe said. "Instead they have their conditions complicated by other deadly infections like hepatitis B and renal failure."
Nigeria is at a critical stage in AIDS epidemic. A 1999 study by the health ministry found 5.4% of sexually active Nigerians, more than 1 in every 20 people, could be HIV-positive. The infection rate has been rising ever since, and unless it is brought under control immediately, experts say it will grow exponentially.
The cure claims are frustrating efforts to tackle widespread ignorance about the disease, which was a taboo subject under the military regime of General Sani Abacha.
"It is going to take a lot of work to get people to understand that no traditional healer can cure you," UNICEF Nigeria spokeswoman Rosemary Wellington said.
Health ministers have only been allowed to publicly discuss AIDS since May 1999, when a democratic government came to power, UNICEF's head of information in Nigeria, Battiloi Warritay said.
Some Nigerians remain skeptical the disease even exists. "I don't believe in AIDS," Victor Igboke, a 26-year-old street trader said. "I have never seen anybody that is carrying AIDS."
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