2002 HIV/AIDS Summit

March 9, 2002

 

Your Excellency, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Your Excellency, the former President of Nigeria Gowan, who works very closely with the Carter Center, distinguished governors of the states represented here, legislators, ministers, experts on controlling disease and alleviating suffering among the poorest of all, and those who have come here with, I hope, a commitment in your minds and hearts to carry from this Saturday Forum not only a message--but a responsibility to deal with what has become the greatest blight on human beings that the world has ever known.

 

HIV/AIDS was first identified in the United States the year after I left the White House, 21 years ago, and for many years the leaders of my country were in denial, not wanting to admit that we had a disease that brought such terrible stigma on those who suffered from it.  This stigma, this reluctance to acknowledge HIV/AIDS has been one of the serious blights that have made it possible for this scourge to continue.  In the world today there are 40 million people who have HIV/AIDS, and as President Obasanjo has just said, 3.6 million of those people are here in Nigeria.  The deaths have followed this analysis or this diagnosis. 

 

Earlier this week my wife and I were in Sudan trying to address a nation that has been at war with itself for 19 years.  Two million people have perished in that war in 19 years.  In Africa last year, 2.3 million people died from AIDS, and the rate of death increases every year.  Some leaders in Africa, some nations in Africa, are still in denial.  They will not associate themselves as leaders with a disease that still brings disgrace on those who suffer it. 

 

Nigeria is blessed with the African leader who has not only taken the initiative in his own country, but also has brought leaders from all over this continent to induce them to share this responsibility with him.  I would say that that is the single most crucial element in controlling AIDS: a commitment of the leader himself.  But as all of you know, that is not enough.  It will require the determined and enthusiastic leadership of every governor in this country, every official who holds responsibility and authority, every health worker no matter what disease might be your primary interest, and in fact every leader of a family and eventually every human being.

 

This morning my good friend Bill Gates, Sr. and our wives and our staffs went to Mabushi, the most poverty-stricken community in Abuja.  What was the purpose of our visit there?  It was to visit professional sex workers, prostitutes.  In Mabushi alone, they tell us there are 5000 young women who devote their lives to earning money from selling sex to support their families back home, their children and others.  And we listened to these young women describe to us their stories.  This small group with whom we met has been educated about the cause of AIDS and the prevention of AIDS.  They know that AIDS is contagious not from contact, not from helping others, not from shaking hands, not even from eating the same food out of the same plate, but from sexual activities together, and they know that this is how AIDS spreads and infects people.  And they also know that there is an inexpensive and effective way to prevent the spread of AIDS through sex acts - whether it is illicit or whether it is between a loving husband and a wife - and it is by the use of condoms. 

 

But in my own country and in other countries sometimes, it is almost impossible for a political leader or even a health leader to mention the word condom or to talk about sex. But this particular pandemic or epidemic has brought before us the necessity for frankness, and for honesty, and for dealing with the most personal aspects of human life.  The act of procreating.  Truth and the key to it is for people to understand - every person in the nation to understand - AIDS is a terrible affliction, AIDS is not inevitable, AIDS can be prevented. 

 

The best choice, I would say as a Christian myself, knowing that there are Islamic leaders here and believers:  Be loyal to your own wife or your own husband.  Don't have casual or illicit sex.  Don't bring this horrible disease into your own home.  That's the first choice.  The second choice though, is to use a condom every time there's a sex act.  This has to be taught, it has to be understood.  And people have to be given hope that with their own assumption of responsibility, they will never have AIDS and they will never bring it home to their loved ones.

 

Some nations began work very early on the AIDS epidemic.  Senegal has had remarkable success with very inexpensive techniques.  They have advocated the use of condoms.  They have covered Senegal with billboards, endorsed by the President himself. 
AIDS is a blight.  It is not necessary.  This is what you do to prevent it.  Thousands of billboards, every two or three hundred yards, reminding people this is what causes AIDS.  It is very difficult these women tell us this morning to induce their sex partner who is paying them a fee to use a condom.  But if that sex partner knew from billboards and advertising, radio and television, I can prevent having AIDS if I use a condom they would be eager to join in the use of condoms.  But the education has to be there and information has to be there.  A very inexpensive but absolutely necessary approach. 

 

I'm not here to advocate the use of very expensive anti-retroviral medicine for the general public and those that already have AIDS.  But there is one basic use that is absolutely crucial and cost effective, and that is the use of an anti-retroviral for a mother who is about to birth a child.  This is very inexpensive, and if a mother is willing to take an AIDS test and she finds out she is HIV positive, she doesn't have to give this disease to her baby.  With a very simple treatment, her baby can be born and have a life again.

 

The day before yesterday, Bill Gates, Sr. and I, with Nelson Mandela, sat in front of a group of people.  We held those babies on our laps, very similar to my own grandchild, and the mothers were in front of us who have AIDS.  Those babies will live - beautiful babies.  Their lives have been saved by the use of this technique.  That's something that can be done all over this country.

 

Well, I think it's very important for us to acknowledge that the leadership that you have in this country with President Obasanjo can be the saving factor in preventing literally millions of Nigerians from suffering the agony and the eventual death - the inevitable death - from AIDS.  My prayer is that everyone assembled here, and everyone with whom you can come in contact, will be inspired to be active and enthusiastic and dedicated to the control of this terrible disease.