Journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases & Practice
Open Access

Research Article

Perception of HIV/AIDS among Rural Secondary Students in UGA, Aguata Local Government Area, Anambra State, Nigeria

CC Umenzekwe^1*, AE Onyido², JU Anumba³, MO Iroezindu⁴, US Unigwe⁴, SB Udoette⁵, CU Ufoaroh¹, IN Nwafia⁶, PT Nwachukwu⁶ and IE Onah⁷

¹Department of Internal Medicine, Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital, Nnewi, Anambra State, Nigeria

²Department of Parasitology and Entomology, Faculty of Biosciences, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, P.M.B 5025, Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria

³Federal Ministry of Health, National Arbovirus and Vectors Research Centre, Enugu, Enugu State-, Nigeria

⁴Department of Medicine, University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Ituku-Ozalla, Enugu, Nigeria

⁵Department of Internal Medicine, University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria

⁶Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Ituku-Ozalla, Enugu, Nigeria

⁷Department of Medical Laboratory Science, Federal College of Veterinary and Medical Laboratory Science, Vom-Jos, Nigeria

Received Date: Apr 23, 2018 / Accepted Date: May 09, 2018 / Published Date: May 16, 2018

Citation: Umenzekwe CC, Onyido AE, Anumba JU, Iroezindu MO, Unigwe US, et al. (2018) Perception of HIV/AIDS among Rural Secondary Students in UGA, Aguata Local Government Area, Anambra State, Nigeria. J Clin Infect Dis Pract 3: 126.

Copyright: © 2018 Umenzekwe CC, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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Human immunodeficiency virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a global pandemic with its occurrence reported from all countries of the world. Adolescents and young adults 15-24 years form the largest group at risk of the infection and hence the need for assessment of their perception of the disease. The study is a descriptive cross sectional study of students of a rural secondary school using self-administered structured questionnaires. Two out of the three government owned secondary schools in Uga were randomly selected and 201 students were sampled using the stratified random sampling technique. All the students have heard about HIV/AIDS but only 157 (78.1%) could correctly say that the infection is caused by a virus. Erroneous causes of the infection like mosquito bite (7.5%) and drinking from dirty water (2%) were also recorded. On the route of transmission, 44.8% and 43.5% of students respectively identified blood transfusion and sexual intercourse as the modes of transmission of the infection. Attitude of the students towards HIV/AIDS was poor as 52.2% would not care for HIV/AIDS patients because of fear of becoming infected. Of the 201 students, 42.3% of the students were sexually active. Condom use was the highest preventive measure practiced (56.6%) and erroneous preventive measures recorded were use of herbs (3.5%), antibiotics (18.2 %) and hot drinks (9.4%). The students had poor knowledge, attitude and practice of HIV/AIDS preventive measures against HIV/AIDS. The need for a school based HIV/AIDS awareness program is advocated. School heads, Community heads, Town unions, Women meetings, Electronic and other mass media should be encouraged to carry out more public enlighten campaigns on HIV/AIDS infection.

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