2019 Worlds AIDS Day: IDISD Uncovers New Strategies to Increase Uptake of HIV Test among Nigerian Youth


Impact Driven Initiative for Sustainable Development (IDISD) Uncovers New Strategies to Increase Uptake of HIV Test among Nigerian Youth



Since 1988, the world has picked every first of December as a day to spread awareness on HIV and come together to unite against the epidemic. The 2019 World Aids Day was themed, ‘Communities making a difference’ as it became apparent that all hands must be on deck to reduce the problems of HIV epidemic.1 Some of these problems include death of the persons living with the disease, graduating of HIV to AIDS, increased spreading of the disease and transferring of the virus from mother to child among other problems.

The virus was identified in 1984 and, since the beginning of the epidemic, 75 million people have been infected with the HIV virus (sic) and about 32 million people have died of HIV.2 In 2018, 37.9 million people were recorded to be living with HIV with African region being most severely affected as nearly 1 in every 25 adults (3.9%) lived with the virus.3

Stepping the 2018 statistics on HIV down to Nigeria, the country has the second largest HIV epidemic in the world, with 1.9 million People living with the disease.4 More than half of the infected population was not on drugs because they didn’t know their status and as a result 53, 000 people died from an AIDS related illness. It is also worth knowing that Nigeria has more HIV-infected babies than anywhere in the world.5

Why Youth test for HIV

In 2018, 67% of people living with HIV in Nigeria knew their status.6 There are many reasons why people decide to know their HIV status and why they also decide not to know their status. In this section, focus is made on why youth test for HIV. To understand why youth test for HIV, we conducted a survey on HIV test rate among youth living in Ilorin, Kwara state. 133 young adults between the age of 18 and 40 years were randomly selected for the survey which was conducted from 30th November to 10th December 2019. The respondents were informed of the aim of the research and were assured of anonymity so as to make them feel at ease in responding to the questions to the best of their knowledge.

The questionnaire contained some questions on why respondents had HIV test done. We also gave them the opportunity to state their own reasons if their reasons were not provided for in the questionnaire.






From the results, 44% of the respondents said they tested for HIV in order to know their status.19% said, ‘fulfilling of requirements’, while health reason accounted for 14% of the reasons given for testing. Partner influence and encouragement through HIV campaigns accounted for 12% and 7% respectively. 


Why Youth refuse uptake of HIV test

Despite many awareness campaigns on HIV in Nigeria, statistics (as quoted earlier) indicates that many (33% of) people living in Nigeria did not see it worthwhile to know their HIV status in 2018.7 Several reasons were documented. These include  problems with availability of test kitand logistics issues getting further supplies.8 There is also a common belief that HTC (HIV Test Centre) “italics added” centres are where HIV-positive people go to access care, rather than them being testing centres for those who don’t know their status.9 Young people refused testing because of reasons like; believing that they couldn’t be HIV positive, not even occurring to them to get tested, not having the time to test, and the fear of the stigma attached to HIV.10

Our research revealed that youth refused to get tested for HIV because they: think it was unnecessary to get tested, are afraid of the outcome of the test, think that the cost of HIV test is high and have no idea of where to take the test. The bar chart below explains the findings.





Majority (53%) of the respondents think it was unnecessary to test. This group was followed by 37% of the respondents who said, they were scared to know their status. Only a respondent was deterred to go for test because of fear of high testing cost while another one did not have the idea of where to test. Other reason as stated by two respondents was, none exposure to unprotected sex.

 

Conclusion

On 14th of March, 2019, Nigerian government released the data of the national HIV prevalence in Nigeria among adults aged 15-49 year as 1.4% while the previous percentage was 2.8%.11 UNAIDS 2019 report also pointed out thus, “Globally, new HIV infections among young women (aged 15–24 years) were reduced by 25% between 2010 and 2018. This is good news, but of course, it remains unacceptable that 6000 adolescent girls and young women become infected with HIV every week.”12 These data among some others reveal that HIV prevalence rate in Nigeria and worldwide is shrinking, but the rate at which this is happening is not good enough.

In conclusion, this study revealed that most youth get tested mainly to know their status while most youth that refused to be tested felt it was unnecessary for them.


Recommendation towards Increasing HIV Test Rate among Youth

We recommend the measures below towards increasing HIV test rate among youth:

Firstly, it is necessary to re-design awareness campaigns to reflect causes of HIV and the importance of HIV test. The IEC materials and posters should explain in clear terms where the test can be done and the cost if any, in local languages.

Secondly, policy makers should ensure HIV test is included as part of the requirement for youth before being admitted into tertiary institutions and National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) camps.

The religious institution should as a matter of urgency make HIV test a mandatory requirement for intending couples before being solemnized in marriage. Some churches have already included HIV test as requirement for joining people together, other religious bodies should immediately follow this trend.

Other ways to encourage people to test for HIV is for healthcare providers to guarantee the privacy of those who want to test for HIV and; people should be assured of the quality of the HIV test.   

References

  1. .      UNAIDS. “Communities make the difference,” accessed December 13, 2019.  https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/campaigns/WAD_2019
  2.  World Health Organization. “World AIDS Day 2019,” accessed December 13, 2019. https://www.who.int/campaigns/world-aids-day/2019
  3. Ibid.
  4. Avert. “HIV and AIDS in Nigeria,” accessed December 27, 2019. https://www.avert.org/professionals/hiv-around-world/sub-saharan-africa/nigeria#footnote1_z2tggtt
  5.  Ibid.
  6. UNAIDS. “Overview,” accessed December 14, 2019. https://www.unaids.org/en/regionscountries/countries/nigeria
  7. Ibid.
  8. Avert. “HIV and AIDS in Nigeria,” accessed December 27, 2019. https://www.avert.org/professionals/hiv-around-world/sub-saharan-africa/nigeria#footnote1_z2tggtt
  9. Ibid.
  10. Iyaniwura CA and Oloyede O.“HIV testing among youths in a Nigerian local Population,” accessed December 30, 2019. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16722355/
  11. UNAIDS. “Press Release,” accessed January 2, 2020. https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/pressreleaseandstatementarchive/2019/march/20190314_nigeria
  12. UNAIDS. "Communities At The Centre Defending Rights Breaking Barriers Reaching People With HIV Services". Geneva: UNAIDS, 2019. https://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/2019-global-AIDS-update_en.pdf.

Research Team
Hanafi Olanrewaju Rabiu (Team Lead)
Akata Arafat
Ahmed Sadiq Danjuma
Hanafi Asmau Temim

This Article is edited by Dr. Hanafi Oladele Salaudeen

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