More 7,000 affected by AIDS daily --- CODEC
From Abba Abubakar Kabara Gusau

MORE than half of the 14,000 persons affected by AIDS each day are children, mostly comprising of girls.
This alarming signal of AIDS threat was disclosed in an exclusive interview with the executive director of a Community Based Development Centre (CODEC), Zamfara state chapter, Hajiya Ummul-Hairi Gambo.
The director further revealed that the manace of the infection is devastatingly increasing, expressing fears that the worst is yet to came if realistic interventions are not employed to address the issue.
Hajiya Ummul-Hairi hinted that between the year 2001 and 2003, the global number of children and orphans with AIDS increased from 11.5 million to 15 million, while in 2004, 510,000 children under the age of 15 died of AIDS related illness.
She also disclosed that in the same year, over 600,000 were newly effected with HIV and another two million are living with the virus.
Hajiya Ummul-Hairi said her centre, which is non-governmental organization, is doing everything possible to sensitize, morbalise and assist the community towards protecting children and women against contracting the devastating infection.
The director further disclosed that CODEC has designed some major achievable aims which include putting the children at the centre of the HIV/AIDS agenda, as well as highlighting HIV/AIDS agenda, as well as the lack of external assistance currently available to address the impact of the pandemic on children.
She said the campaign to protect ruinarable children will engage all communities of the three selected local governments in the state to get involved in the CODEC project with a view to working closely together to form a united and powerful response to the threat that HIV/AIDS poses to childhood.
Last weekend, the CODEC, visited the Gusau Orphanage and donated assorted materials of food and clothing worth several thousands of naira, which was witnessed by the state deputy governor, Alhaji Mahmoud Aliyu Shinkafi.