On the Side of an Orphan

A community health worker examines a child

It began with the loss of the father to a road accident and the mother to post- natal complications three months after her birth.  While, Bunmi (not her real name) gained a new mother and caregiver in her Aunt, Mrs. Oloye, there was still more to come for the toddler.   During a door-to-door HIV Testing and Counselling campaign, organized by the USAID-supported Local Partners for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (LOPIN), Bunmi was found to be HIV+.
  
Terrified and sad by the test report, Mrs. Oloye was, at the same time relieved that she had found an explanation for her niece’s worsening health condition.  Prior to the diagnosis Bunmi was sickly and sluggish and the aunt a local herb (Agbo) seller was at her wits end over the child’s steady health decline.

Prevention is Better than Cure

This posting's title is a popular adage in Nigeria mainly used in relation to health issues.  It serves to show the importance of taking measures to prevent illness rather than go through the trouble of treatment.  A very good example of this is getting vaccinated to prevent infection by certain diseases.  Today many diseases that hitherto resulted in death or disability have been brought under control as a result of immunization.  Diseases like smallpox, whooping cough, measles and polio.
First documented vaccines began when a British doctor Edward Jenner noticed milkmaids who had cowpox never contracted small pox.  He then carried out an experiment in 1796 in which puss from a cowpox blister was inserted into an eight year old boy and proved that having been inoculated with cowpox the boy was immune to smallpox.  From this beginning vaccines have been developed to protect against many fatal or serious diseases.  Better yet, smallpox has been eradicated thanks to the pioneering work of Edward Jenner.
Today immunization starts at birth and most are usually completed by the time the child is two years old.  Why start so early?  Why not wait until the child is grown?  This is what the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has to say.