Journalists tasked on HIV/AIDS reportage

April 5, 2007 :: Emma Okereke, Daily Champion,Lagos

Journalists have been urged to give priority attention to reportage of issues relating to HIV and Aids, so as to halt and begin to reverse their spread in the country.

They have also been advised to be careful in their choice of words, especially words that could make people fell that HIV is a hopeless situation.

These were some of the highlights of a nine-point communique issued by Journalists Alliance for the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV (JAP) South East, at the end of a three-day workshop on sensitisation and alliance building for media executives and journalists, on Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT) at Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.

The forum also harped on the need for journalists to carry out adequate research before writing any story on HIV/Aids so that they could better inform and educate the society.

Besides, the communique also emphasised that journalists should through their write-ups appeal to the conscience of not only governments but also corporate bodies and individuals on the need to contribute to the efforts to reduce the infection of HIV and Aids.

The journalists however, expressed disgust that the spread of HIV to children through their mothers, was on the increase and agreed to be part of the crusade to prevent the Mother-to-Child Transmission of the HIV through their stories and commentaries.

The communique also stressed that it was wrong to stigmatise those persons living with HIV infection. It commended Akwa Ibom State Ministry of Health which hosted the workshop, for the gesture UNICEF for its support and other donor agencies for their concern and support to reduce the spread of the infection.

Earlier, the Akwa Ibom State Commissioner for Health Dr. Okon J. Emah, had stressed that HIV/Aids is real, adding that the ever increasing number of deaths, the number of orphans, widows or widowers, the effects on education, the labour force and the productive levels were all too obvious and numerous to be ignored.

He said it was against this background that the state government had stepped up its activities to check the spread. Some of these he said, include payment of its counterpart funding to the World Bank, and collaborating with UNICEF in the establishment of seven voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) centres to provide VCT and PMTCT Services to the people.

Dr. Emah appealed to the media to become strong advocates in the fight against HIV/Aids.

While thanking UNICEF for its role, so far, in the fight against the disease, he appealed to people living with HIV to avail themselves of the antiretroviral drugs available at government hospitals and stop indiscriminate spread of it to others.

In his own address, assistant representative/chief of field office UNICEF field office, Mr. George Cooke, restated their commitment to the sixth Millennium Development Goal which is to halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/Aids, Malaria and other major diseases.

He said that with over five million births every year in Nigeria and the current national sero prevalence of 4.4 per cent thousands of newborns would be infected with the virus if appropriate actions were not taken.

The chief of field office, whose address was read by Dr. Steve Okokwu, the programme officer health, urged the media to use the diverse channels at their disposal to disseminate appropriate messages to the people on mother-to-child transmission of HIV to ensure children born free of HIV infection.