World AIDS Day: Heritage Life Support Initiative Sensitize Osun Residents On HIV/AIDS

AMILOADED MEDIA HUB NEWS UPDATE

In commemoration of World AIDS Day, Heritage Life Support Initiative has sensitized the people of Osun State on HIV/AIDS, AMILOADED reports.

The Initiative also held a free HIV screening for 100 participants at the event held on Thursday at JONAPWD Secretariat in Osogbo, Osun State.

The event themed, ‘Putting Ourselves to the Test: Achieving Equity to End HIV’, was supported by the Nigerian Red Cross, Osun State Branch, Mr Yinka Odewale, and Joint National Association of Persons With Disabilities.

Addressing the attendees, the Executive Director of Heritage Life Support Initiative, Mrs Bukola Ejiade said the organisation was neither religious nor politically biased and not for profit.

She descrbed Osun as one of the states with the highest number of HIV carriers in the country, saying it was major reason for the sensitisation programme.

“We have decided to give this year’s testing a different approach by involving People With Disabilities. We have discovered that the society often put things past you, which ought not be because you’re very much a part of the society,” Ejiade said.

A health worker, Adeola Ade-Alao, while speaking at the event, said December 1, marked all over the world as World AIDS Day, is solely for the purpose of awareness that the virus is still very much around.

“Human Immuno-Deficiency Virus (HIV) is a virus that attacks the immune system of the body thereby making it prone to infections. HIV/AIDS can be transmitted through unprotected sex, unscreened/ poorly screened blood transfusion, sharing of sharp objects and mother-child transfusion.

“This Day is to bring people into the awareness of HIV/AIDS all over again and to get them to know their HIV status. It doesn’t end at knowing their status, those discovered to be carriers of the virus would be linked to facilities across the state where free care is given to patients,” Ade-Alao said.

The Chairman of Persons With Disabilities (PWD) in Olorunda Local government area in Osun State, Mr Akinyemi Johnson, appreciated the initiative taken by Heritage Life Support to include Persons With Disabilities in their programme.

He encouraged Persons With Disabilities to voice out in all areas of life and stand their ground wherever they are.