Media Gatekeepers Training Workshop

Participants in the workshop included news managers, assistant editors-in-chief, health editors, line editors, and managers holding senior editorial positions in print and broadcast media organisations across the country. Presentations were given on the science of HIV/AIDS, socio-economic issues surrounding HIV/AIDS, latest advances in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment (including antiretrovirals, microbicides, vaccines, the female condom, and herbal remedies for opportunistic infections) and quality assurance of condoms available in the Nigerian market. There were also discussions on appropriate use of language, myths and misconceptions, and roles and responsibilities the media in ensuring coverage of the AIDS pandemic. Participants also listened to presentations from people living with HIV/AIDS; they then developed stories on the basis of those encounters, which were peer-reviewed and critiqued by all.

HIV/AIDS.

Participants articulated the following resolutions:

• to approach coverage of the pandemic in a different way in order to foster enjoyable lives for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA).
• to encourage the cooperation of PLWHA to enhance media coverage or reporting of issues concerning them and the pandemic.
• to enable media professionals to employ some positive language in their HIV/AIDS-related reports and analyses (in light of the fact that frightening media reports and issues about stigma have not encouraged PLWHA to openly declare their HIV status).
• to enjoin media organisations to be wary of accepting advertisements of unsubstantiated claims of cure or treatment of HIV/AIDS; if they must accept such advertisements, organisations should clearly indicate that they have no proof of such claims and cannot be held responsible.
• to help make HIV/AIDS-related NGOs aware of the need to collaborate with the media to demystify HIV/AIDS in Nigeria.
• to support the federal government in the following efforts:
  
  • a law that would guarantee the sustenance of the ongoing anti-retroviral therapy programme
  • the local manufacture of generic versions of these drugs, as well as the subsidisation and promotion of the sale of female condoms in Nigeria
  • the establishment and support of firms that would manufacture condoms locally
  • the passing of legislation to prevent the sale of anti-retroviral drugs without prescription by a competent medical authority, the construction of a comprehensive policy on HIV vaccine, and the design of a community-based approach to stopping the pandemic.
  • the reduction of the cost of laboratory tests for HIV viral loads, screening, and CD4 counts.