The humanitarian crisis of our time is the worldwide HIV/AIDS pandemic. Yet as we enter the third decade of this calamity, misconceptions about transmission are still rampant. These range from myths that sleeping with a virgin can cure HIV/AIDS, to lack of awareness that STDs increase the risk of transmission. Meanwhile, condom use, by far the cheapest and most effective protection against sexual transmission of HIV, is extremely rare in many areas of the world.

Last June, an unprecedented United Nations three-day special session on HIV/AIDS addressed these issues. Never before has the 189-nation body devoted a meeting to a health problem.
This clearly is an indication that the world had started to wake up to the pandemic, according to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. He called for significantly increased spending on the battle against AIDS in developing countries, asking for it “to rise to roughly five times its present level” of about $1.8 billion a year.

Four PCI international program staff members attended sessions on subjects ranging from the development of an AIDS vaccine to efforts to make costly anti-retroviral drugs widely available to developing countries. They listened to a panel led by loveLife, a multi-media project in South Africa that educates adolescents about HIV/AIDS while motivating them to have a positive attitude toward their sexuality, and to a UNICEF panel that featured singer/actor Harry Belafonte making an impassioned plea for openness about the epidemic.

Sub-Saharan Africa, a vast geographic area that is home to 673 million people and more than 800 ethnic groups, remains one of the world’s poorest regions. Among the region’s many urgent health and social challenges, the HIV/AIDS pandemic is most critical. An estimated 25.3 million sub-Saharan adults and children are infected with HIV or living with AIDS, almost two-thirds of the worldwide total of 36.1 million.

For years, PCI has been fighting HIV/AIDS by educating its Kenyan and Tanzanian audiences, where our radio programs’ characters struggle with health and sexuality issues. New programmatic initiatives will broaden and strengthen our work to combat the epidemic.

PCI is undertaking a research project to identify the most effective communication strategies in HIV/AIDS prevention to emerge in the epidemic’s 20-year history. Everett Rogers and Arvind Singhal, researchers who have extensively studied communications and entertainment-education programs, are collaborating on a book that will focus on the best HIV/AIDS communications strategies in South Africa, Brazil, Thailand, India, and possibly Kenya. A small working conference of six to ten experts in the field will review the draft in progress, and publication is expected in 2002.

In Tanzania, PCI is cultivating a relationship with the African Youth Alliance, an HIV/AIDS prevention initiative, to explore the creation of a radio program on teen sexuality, including questions of HIV risk, women’s status, domestic violence, and substance abuse.

In Kenya, our soap opera will strengthen and expand the HIV/AIDS information and prevention themes and emphasize compassion for people living with HIV/AIDS. To respond to the need to educate young people about the risks of HIV/AIDS, there will be a strong focus on adolescent sexual and reproductive health. The Kenyan government has asked us to include stories about mental health and tuberculosis, both ancillary issues to the HIV/AIDS crisis.

Telling stories about AIDS and its impact on individuals, families, and communities through serial drama is a powerful tool to combat misinformation and denial. The social and behavioral changes promoted by PCI’s soap operas are among the remedies that hold the most promise for slowing HIV transmission.

Back to top