Experts blame govt on spread of HIV/AIDS

EXPERTS in family care have blamed the spread of the HIV/AIDS endemic on the reluctance of the political class to pay attention to human capital development.Speaking at a workshop in Ibadan, a retired Professor of Demography and Social Statistics, Lawrence Adedokun, and another retired Matron, Mrs. Grace Oluwatoye said that government's attitude had not helped in the control of the pandemic.At the one-day media forum tagged, 'Family Planning: A tool for getting HIV/AIDS to zero', organised by the Development Communi-cations Network (DEVCOM) in conjunction with NURHI, a non -governmental organisation, Adedokun said that the family planning programmes in the country should be made to go beyond targeting the prevention of pregnancy but should be able to assist in preventing diseases, especially the dreaded HIV/AIDS virus.Besides, he said that a situation where the family planning scheme was targeted at married women only leaving out other vulnerable groups called for concern.'We must try and restructure these programmes so that family planning message and that of the prevention of diseases like HIVAIDS can go together,' he said.Oluwatoye pleaded for adequate funding of the HIV/AIDS programme, the same way international agencies pumped money into the anti-military sentiments, which gave birth to the return of democracy in the country.Oluwatoye, who noted that Nigeria's population would be about 300 million in the next 20 years, while the current three million people living with HIV/AIDS would also triple, admitted that family planning was a potent tool in tackling population explosion, as well as reducing the number of people who would be infected with the dreaded virus.
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