AIDS in Cameroon: The Once Unassailable Disease of Death

AIDS is still prevalent in Cameroon. It "flourished" in the 90's and has only receded slightly in breadth of presence since then. The difference now is the availability of antiviral medications at prices made more affordable starting in 2000. The impact of AIDS in terms of numbers is alarming, but knowing how individuals and families were affected is sickening. The deadly sway of the disease could be seen by the wide swath of lives taken and survivors devastated.

The contemporary spread of AIDS in Cameroon is tempered by three factors. One is that a good number of early sufferers did not survive, reducing the size of the current pool of eligible victims. Another is that the awareness and knowledge of the disease is greater among those who are inclined to be sexually active. And the third factor is the aforementioned use of antiviral drugs in Cameroon.

It is unfortunate that there are those who survived the initial deadly spread of AIDS and did not learn as they could have. I know a man; a brother-in-law of my wife, who was recently diagnosed with the disease. He had become very thin and sickly earlier this year. Those who visited him and gave first hand descriptions of his condition were not encouraged. He has 5 children with his wife including two under the age of ten.

In 1988, I was teaching at a school in Sub Saharan Africa. The brother of a teaching colleague visited one day. He was described as a medical professional residing in the United States, living in the city of Detroit. It was decided that he should be able to speak authoritatively on the topic of AIDS. At the time, it was thought that the while the virus was rampant in the US, it was a topic that was just beginning to broach the awareness of the people living in Africa at the time.

He spoke about the virus. However, he started by speaking in generalities, as if it was just another sexually transmitted disease. As he began his speech, I had thought it was a good idea for him to talk to the students, many of whom were already, or would soon be, experienced sexually. It also seemed to be a topic relevant to the staff, although I had not reached the full understanding of how teachers' behavior played a significant role in the spread of the disease in Cameroon.

And it was only much later that it could have been described as a "coming full circle" for the disease. But even at this time, I became distressed as the man spoke. He had decided to give more details about the disease by explaining that the name was an acronym. And he wanted to give the word represented by each letter. However, as he began with the letter A, he did not say it represented "acquired."

I was somewhat taken aback. This straightforward rendering of the AIDS acronym was commonly known in the United States and the existence, description, method of transmission and symptoms of the disease were communicated to those of us serving in Cameroon. It seemed to me any person who lived in the US and paid any attention to the media there should know this basic information about AIDS.

I don't remember the words he offered in their place and I had the distinct feeling that a real "teachable moment" had been squandered. It was only much later, after I left Africa, did I hear how devastating this disease was to the people living there. And what I later learned made me fret less about students' understanding and instead gasp in despair when I correlated what I had seen of some teachers' behavior with their role as vectors in the spread of AIDS in Cameroon.

In Cameroon, it was a policy of the government to send teachers to schools in a different province from the one in which they hailed. Because the country had two official languages and innumerable native languages, it seemed like a reasonable idea. But in terms of disease transmission, the movement of a group of professional men and women was an enabler. Another factor made government employed teachers right for their role in the spread of disease; they were typically paid on a regular basis, making them capable of traveling but also bringing attention to themselves as people of means in what could be a poor town or village in which they worked.

What I observed were a small number of teachers who had female students visit them in their homes. I was visited as well, but in my case it was during the daylight hours and led to nothing. This was another topic on which we had received training, or in this regard, warning. Perhaps all visits by female students to the homes of male teachers passed as innocently; I can only assume not all.

Another aspect to AIDS in Cameroon is that a different strain than the one commonly found in the US is prevalent there. When this was discovered, the strain in the US became known as HIV-A, with the other named as HIV-B. This factor has forced the US Center for Disease Control to issue special handling instructions for blood meant to be donated by individuals from Cameroon. Instead of developing a second blood test for this strain, the answer is to reject blood donated by not only people from Cameroon or who lived there, but also any country bordering it.

We recently got news that our brother-in-law is feeling stronger, can care for himself and even get out of bed. We were told when he first heard the results of the test, he was in denial and then angry. But that he did start taking the antiviral medicine which is available at one of the Baptist hospitals in the province. These drugs are made available at a discount, but the price to most people in Cameroon is not insignificant.

A common mode of transmission in Africa is for a man to pass the disease to his wife, so we feared for my wife's sister. She and her husband were tested at the same time; her result came back negative. She has been urged to get tested again and verify she still does not have the disease. But we still remember the warning that HIV can be present in the body but remain dormant for up to a year or even longer.

It is the hubris of men that allows them to venture into the bush of Cameroon and hunt animals. When they kill one it becomes a source of food and income. It is possible that on a hunting trip long ago in Cameroon that the first human acquired the AIDS virus. Today, we live with the alarm of AIDS faint in our minds save for the intrusions of individual stories. With the discovery of a cocktail of drugs to treat it we can be thankful it is not the unassailable death sentence it once was.