11 SEPTEMBER 2003
As the dreaded Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) continue to spread like wild fire international bodies, Jose Foundation and Guardian Scientific Africa (GSA) have reached an agreement to working together in a bid to fight the syndrome in Africa. A meeting held at Monmouth Beach, New Jersey, United States of America recently, it was agreed that a program be fashioned out to fight the AIDS scourge using a multi-dimensional approach. The program is designed to reach about 1,000,000 citizens of Nigeria for a start, and to span over five years.
The meeting was attended by the president of Jose Foundation, Prince Martins Abhulimhen; President, GSA Ms. Madeline Wasserman officials of both bodies, and some other stakeholders concerned about the AIDS scourge in Africa. According to Madeline Wasserman, President of the GSA, “We look forward to achieving our common goal of cutting in half the spread of HIV infection within five years through implementation of Guardian Scientific Africa’s door-to-door community-based plan.
Through the GSA website (www.guardianscientificafrica.com) and book it has provided information about its rapid test kits and community based program for counselling, education, testing and recording, and found the information interesting and informative. The GSA plan is to provide medical and communications technologists, who will coordinate with the Ministry of Health to develop HIV &TB sentinel health centres/testing sites in the area where there is a high incidence of the disease.
The first action is to educate citizens about HIV/AIDS. The short-term strategy is to go door to door, community to community and region to region.
The goal is to encourage all citizens to take the HIV/AIDS tests to determine the presence or absence of infection.