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THE EFFECTS OF COUNSELLING ON STUDENTS’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS HIV/AIDS INFECTION

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background to the Study

AIDS is an acronym for Acquired Immuno Deficiency syndrome a killer disease that progressively destroys organs of the body including the immune systems and the central nervous system. The disease is caused by a virus, the human immuno deficiency  virus type I (HIV) according to World Health Organisation, (WHO, 1980).

The initial symptoms of HIV – I infection often resemble influenza or nomonucleosis and appear within a few days or weeks after exposure. These symptoms often disappear after several weeks. Prolonged disease period may last for ten years or more after initial infection, more commonly eight to ten years elapse before the onset of serious disease symptoms. During this later phase, the HIV-infected or (HIV positive) patient is said to have AIDS.

According to Aiken (1991) AIDS was first reported in 1981 by investigators in New York and California. Initially, most of the cases of AIDS in the United States were diagnosed in homo-sexuals who contacted the virus primarily through sexual relationships and intravenous drug use or by sharing contaminated hypodermic needles.

HIV/AIDS spread to endemic proportion in the 1980’s particularly in Africa where the disease might have originated from. The spread was likely facilitated by several factors which include increasing urbanization and long distance travel in Africa i.e. international travellers, changing sexual partners and intravenous drug users.

According to the United Nations (2004) report on AIDS, some 38 million people were living with HIV, approximately, 5 million people become injected annually and about 3 million people die each year from AIDS.

Humphrey, (1990) states that people living in sub-Saharan Africa, accounted for some 70 percent of all the prevalence of HIV infection of inhabitants which exceeded 10 percent of the population. Rates of infection were lower in other parts of the world, but the epidemic spread rapidly in the Eastern Europe, India, South Africa, South East Asia, Latin America and other Caribbean Island. Rates of infection were also on the rise in the United States of America and Western Europe where the identified factors contributing to the contraction of HIV/AIDS as being prominent. In the United States for example, nearly one million people were living with HIV. In Asia, the sharpest increase in HIV infection were found in China, Indonesia and Vietnam.

The above information are dispersed to students by experts in counselling and guidance. According to Adeleke (1990) over the years counselling has been used in school to pass vital information on the spread and management of the HIV/AIDS diseases. In many schools today, students have embraced counselling as an instrument of guidance and preventive measure to their sexual related problems. With the establishment of counselling in schools students of all strata, are now very much aware of causes and effect of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Due to creation of enlightenment on important issues, students no longer show negative attitudes towards counselling, rather, they embrace it knowing that the school uses it as an instrument of assistance and remedy to the problem of individuals. For example the knowledge of the dangers of HIV/AIDS which counselling has brought to many students. It has made them to be careful and mindful of their sexual activities bearing in mind that through 

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