WORLD AIDS DAY: No cure 41 yrs later, but advanced treatments. Why are fewer Cameroonians getting tested?

By Hans Ngala

December 1, 2022 marks 41 years since scientists discovered the virus that would later be named as the Human Immune Virus or HIV which causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). For many years, scientists of all sorts virologists, biologists and chemists have sought to find a cure but none has been found up to this day.

However, giant strides have been made in the fight against HIV and AIDS. Better treatment options are now available and those with HIV who get started on antiretroviral therapy (ART) early enough and who stick to their treatment regimen, can expect to live a normal lifespan. What was once a death sentence just a few decades ago is pretty much now a manageable condition almost the same way as one manages diabetes or hypertension.

This year’s World AIDS Day is being commemorated under the theme “Equalize” which according to Cameroon’s National AIDS Control Committee is a call to action which calls on all Cameroonians to “do all we can to address the inequalities which are holding back progress in ending AIDS”.

According to the National AIDS Control Committee, some 500,000 people are living with HIV/AIDS in Cameroon and the statistics seem to prove that treatment is working and saving lives. In 2003 for example, 2.9 million people died worldwide from HIV/AIDS but that number dropped to just 650,000 people worldwide in 2021.

This is proof that treatment is working and effective. However, this pattern tends to be affected by some such as Pentecostal preachers who claim to have the power to “cure” this disease. Their pronouncements sometimes make some of their followers to defer their medication, resulting in complications and sometimes death.

Doctors and other health experts have maintained that abstinence remains the best way to prevent the virus, but those who are sexually active and or must have sex, should use a condom every time. HIV treatment is more effective when it is diagnosed early, giving higher chances of survival.