GUIDER, Cameroon: The two big maps show the districts of the northern Cameroonian town of Guider along with its brothels, nightclubs and other seedy spots to identify places from where AIDS could spread among adolescents.
Cameroon, a country of 23 million that hugs Africa’s Gulf of Guinea, has one of the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in the world.
“The maps highlight the high-risk zones for transmission,” said Boris Mbaho Tchaptchet, 21, speaking at a local youth club.
“We located the love hotels, the video clubs, the cabarets, the underground meeting places before putting into place an action and prevention plan in our community,” he said.
The club in Guider was one of those selected for the “All In! End Aids among Adolescents” project launched in August 2015 with the backing of the UN children’s agency UNICEF.
According to official figures, 79,771 children and adolescents are HIV-positive, but experts say it is much higher.
“This platform brings together all the interventions fighting HIV in the country targeting young people,” said Jules Ngwa Edielle, who runs the HIV prevention in Cameroon’s Youth and Civic Education Ministry.
It ropes in local administrative, political and religious authorities to fight the disease. With his colleagues, 21-year-old Bouba Saliou was trained as a peer-group educator in his neighborhood.
“My role is to talk with other young people, ask them questions to understand their situation and to encourage them to get tested,” he explained.
But broaching the delicate issue is not without its pitfalls.
“Some people react saying, ‘You think I’m sick? Have you ever seen me having sexual relations?’
“Others simply refuse, saying that they are confident about their status. But I try to convince anyway,” he added with smile.
Saliou cites the case of a 17-year-old who found out he was HIV-positive because of his intervention.
“He was very angry at me when he got the results,” he recalled. “But today we talk regularly and he tells he is following his treatment regularly.”
This community-based approach is essential if Cameroon is to attain the 90-90-90 target set by the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), which Cameroon signed up to back in 2015.
The aim is to get to the point where 90 percent of those who are HIV-positive know about their condition; where 90 percent of those who know are on retroviral treatment; and where 90 percent of those receiving that treatment achieve viral suppression.
The hope is to be able to wipe out the virus by 2030.
Therese Nduwimana, who runs UNICEF Cameroon’s HIV unit, said the program had proved its worth in the north of the country with the No Limit for Women Project (Nolfowop).
“With a budget of just $40,000 a year the results have been spectacular,” she said.
“In just months, the number of HIV-positive children identified has been multiplied by four,” she said.
However, one of the problems is an acute shortage of medical staff. The hospital in Garoua, which serves an area with 2.7 million people, only has one pediatric and one gynecologist.
A group of around 30 women were gathered at one of the town’s health centers, waiting to be tested about their HIV status. The result is announced almost immediately.
“Our volunteers have gone door to door to encourage every pregnant woman to get tested,” said Odette Etame, who heads the Nolfowop project.
Other mothers acting as mentors then made home visits to physically accompany HIV-positive women and their children for anti-retroviral treatment, she added.
This was one way to reach people who would other wise be lost from view, she said.
Cameroon had a 5.75-percent HIV prevalence rate for pregnant women in 2016, making it one of the 10 countries responsible for 75 percent of new pediatric infections worldwide.
Love hotels targeted to fight HIV among Cameroon teens
Love hotels targeted to fight HIV among Cameroon teens
World not ready for rise in extreme heat, scientists say
- In a new study, they looked at different global warming scenarios to project how often people in the future might experience temperatures considered uncomfortably hot or cold
PARIS: Nearly 3.8 billion people could face extreme heat by 2050, and while tropical countries will bear the brunt, cooler regions will also need to adapt, scientists said Monday.
Demand for cooling will “drastically” increase in large countries like Brazil, Indonesia, and Nigeria, where hundreds of millions of people lack air conditioning or other means to beat the heat.
But even a moderate increase in hotter days could have a “severe impact” in nations not accustomed to such conditions, such as Canada, Russia, and Finland, said scientists from the University of Oxford.
In a new study, they looked at different global warming scenarios to project how often people in the future might experience temperatures considered uncomfortably hot or cold.
They found “that the population experiencing extreme heat conditions is projected to nearly double” by 2050 if global average temperatures rise 2°C above preindustrial times.
But most of the impact would be felt this decade as the world fast approaches the 1.5°C mark, said the study’s lead author Jesus Lizana.
“The key takeaway from this is that the need for adaptation to extreme heat is more urgent than previously known,” said Lizana, an environmental scientist.
“New infrastructure, such as sustainable air conditioning or passive cooling, needs to be built out within the next few years to ensure people can cope with dangerous heat.”
Prolonged exposure to extreme heat can overwhelm the body’s natural cooling systems, causing symptoms ranging from dizziness and headaches to organ failure and death.
It is often called a silent killer because most heat deaths occur gradually as high temperatures and other environmental factors work together to undermine the body’s internal thermostat.
Climate change is making heatwaves longer and stronger, and access to cooling — especially air conditioning — will be vital in the future.
The study, published in the journal Nature Sustainability, projected that 3.79 billion people worldwide could be exposed to extreme heat by mid century.
This would “drastically” increase energy demand for cooling in developing nations where the gravest health consequences would be felt. India, the Philippines, and Bangladesh would be among the countries with the largest populations affected.
The most significant change in “cooling degree days” — temperatures hot enough to require cooling, such as air conditioning or fans — was projected in tropical or equatorial countries, particularly in Africa.
Central African Republic, Nigeria, South Sudan, Laos, and Brazil saw the biggest rise in dangerously hot temperatures.
“Put simply, the most disadvantaged people are the ones who will bear the brunt of this trend, our study shows for ever hotter days,” said urban climate scientist and research co-author Radhika Khosla.
But wealthier countries in traditionally cooler climates also “face a major problem — even if many do not realize it yet,” she added.
Countries like Canada, Russia, and Finland may experience steep drops in “heating degree days” — temperatures low enough to require indoor heating — under a 2°C scenario.
But even a moderate rise in hotter temperatures would be felt more acutely in countries not designed to withstand heat, the authors said.
In these countries, homes and buildings are usually built to maximize sunlight and minimize ventilation, and public transport runs without air conditioning.
Some cold-climate nations may see a drop in heating bills, Lizana said, but over time these savings would likely be replaced by cooling costs, including in Europe, where air conditioning is still rare.
“Wealthier countries cannot sit back and assume they will be OK — in many cases, they are dangerously underprepared for the heat that is coming over the next few years,” he said.
