Indigenous Etiology and Care-Seeking in HIV/AIDS among Akoko People of Southwestern Nigeria
Raymond Kayode Kuteyi
Department of Archaeology and Anthropology
University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria
Email: raymondkuteyi 90@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
There is a parallel between local and bio-medical perceptions of HIV/AIDS among the Akoko people of South-Western Nigeria, as in many other societies of sub-Saharan Africa where HIV and AIDS is pandemic. Despite the fact that this accounts for resilience of the disease, earlier studies on HIV/AIDS in Africa focused on causes, prevalence, logistics and social stigma. Local meanings of HIV/AIDS and their influence on care-seeking have been largely ignored. This study examines local perceptions of HIV/AIDS among the Akoko and explains how attitudes are generated from indigenous meanings. It also examines how such attitudes inform a local etiology of HIV/AIDS. Similarly, our study examines how local meanings of, and attitudes towards the disease, set the pathway of care in its management among the Akoko people. Through qualitative and descriptive ethnography, Key Informant Interview (KII), Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and the textual analysis of documents, our study seeks to establish that HIV /AIDS are linked to both natural and supernatural causation. 83% of the respondents held that HIV/AIDS is due to witchcraft, nemesis and whoredom. These local perceptions are drawn from local conceptions which in turn encourage HIV/AIDS patients to seek assistance outside modern health care facilities. This also discourages local communities from attending health education workshops that link HIV/AIDS with germ theory and care. Treatment of HIV/AIDS is thus mostly home-based where a wide variety of traditional remedies is practiced. Our study concludes that the lack of convergence between local knowledge-contents and bio-medical explanations account for a high prevalence rate and the lack of effective management. For proper management of the disease, there is a need to understand indigenous knowledge and local concepts in order to establish a convergence between bio-medical explanations and indigenous perceptions. Only then can a community acceptable means of changing bio-medical perceptions of the disease be facilitated.
Keywords: Indigenous; Etiology; Care–seeking; Akoko, HIV/AIDS
