Beyond Donor Funding: Why Public Health Needs Local Support

Twenty-five years ago, an HIV/AIDS diagnosis in Nigeria was widely regarded as a death sentence. Treatment options were virtually non-existent and hope was in short supply.
For families, the priority was often not care but burial arrangements. For those who were single, marriage and childbearing were considered impossible. Employment was rare and stigma was overwhelming.
According to the Chief Executive Officer of APIN Public Health Initiatives, Prof. Prosper Okonkwo, the early 2000s represented a period when silence, fear, and death defined the HIV narrative in Nigeria.
“In the year 2000, a person living with HIV in Nigeria was, in most cases, living with a death sentence. There we...