Senegal is a role model in the fight against HIV/Aids. Along with Uganda and Thailand, the United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids says the West African country has succeeded in reducing the spread of the virus.
Senegal’s success in the fight against the disease lies in its pragmatic approach, something that is unusual in a country where more than 80% of its population is Muslim.
The country’s determination to fight the epidemic is particularly evident in the capital, Dakar, where IPS met a group of students that had gathered around a table listening attentively to a man who was demonstrating how to use a condom.
”This is a group of 14- to 16-year-old eighth-graders from the Dakar Middle School who came to us and asked for a presentation on family planning and modern contraceptive practices,” explained Abdoul Aziz Tandian of the Senegalese Association for Family Welfare (Asbef).
Created in 1974 under the aegis of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the Asbef — an NGO — ”encourages family planning education and promotes reproductive health”.
The Asbef teaches young people on the use of condoms. Its officials go out of their way to meet them in community centres, dressmaking and beauty saloons, as well as in schools.
”[Young people] also come to us for information on various aspects of reproductive health, such as family planning, pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases [STDs] like HIV/Aids. And they always come back to ask for condoms,” Tandian explains. ”The overwhelming majority of young people in Senegal know the benefits of condoms, but they often balk at using them.”
IPS met with Boubacar Sow, a secondary student, at the Asbef offices. He often comes to the office to get condoms or information on reproductive health.
”My friends at the cultural and sports centre in my neighbourhood always ask me to get some for them,” he confided, holding a package of condoms carefully wrapped in an old sheet of newspaper in his hand.
During June, Asbef sold more than 9 000 condoms at 10 francs (one United States cent) each, Tandian says. Sales are expected to go up during the coming school vacation, he adds.
Young Senegalese know a lot about condoms and where to get them.
”The problem is with adults who don’t always take the steps of buying one,” says Seydou Keita of the Agency for Development of Social Marketing, an affiliate of the US Agency for International Development.
”Senegalese society is always very refractory when it comes to going into a pharmacy to buy a condom, for example,” explains Keita. Cultural prejudices and religious constraints are also obstacles to wider condom use.
Formed in 1998, the Agency for Development of Social Marketing’s goal is to bring condom use into the mores of Senegalese society.
To achieve its goals, the agency distributes attractively packaged contraceptive products throughout this West African country. It also produces television advertisements with big names from the Senegalese music scene about the advantages of using condoms in family planning.
Despite the campaign, most young people are still ill-informed about HIV/Aids. They refuse to accept the fact that they, too, are at risk of catching the disease, says a Dakar health official.
”The majority continues to feel that HIV/Aids is a disease that only ‘other people’ catch. It’s a lack of understanding that needs to be overcome as quickly as possible,” he adds.
In spite of a concerted media campaign about the gravity of Aids, its economic and social impact on those infected and affected by the disease, and the likelihood of high-risk sexual partners transmitting the virus, the use of condoms in Senegal remains low, according to the Asbef.
The 2001 Senegalese Survey on Health Indicators shows that the rate of contraceptive prevalence nationally was 8,1% among women of reproductive age. The survey did not include young men.
With young people constituting 55% of Senegal’s 9,8-million people, the need for Aids awareness among this group is pressing.
Earlier and frequent sexual relations could increase the incidence of STDs, including Aids. The official prevalence rate of HIV/Aids in Senegal is 1,4%, according to the country’s National Committee against Aids.
But the 2001 survey showed there is a satisfactory level of knowledge about condoms among Senegalese youth, since more than 90% of male pupils and more than 70% of youths from the informal sector knew that it is a means of preventing Aids.
The study confirmed that the problem exists at the level of usage. Seventeen percent of male pupils admitted that they never used condoms during sex with casual partners. Among boys who do not attend school, the rate rose to 30%.
For their sexual debut, fewer than 15% of girls working in the informal sector used a condom. Among boys, the percentage was nearly 30%, according to the study.
Senegal’s determination to fight the disease is contained in its 2002-2006 Strategic National Plan against Aids, which aims to maintain the level of HIV/Aids prevalence rate below 3% until 2006 — one of the lowest in the world. — IPS