Education: An Antidote for the Spread of HIV/AIDS Adesoji A. Oni, BAEd, MEd, PhD There are growing fears about the rate at which AIDS is spreading across the globe today, particu- larly in Africa. In 20 years, AIDS has become the greatest pandemic ever, and indications are that it will continue to increase. Because there is no uni- versally accepted curative drug for the treatment of the epidemic, this report describes an attempt at providing education as a preventive method for the spread of the deadly disease. It is also an attempt to rise to this challenge by a systematic analysis of appropriate theories that can lead to insight into the epidemic. An empirical approach will further add to scholarly understanding and much-desired solutions. Suggestions are offered on how to achieve these goals through integration of HIV/AIDS education into school curricula, and how nursing practice can help in the education about and treatment of the disease. This report is the first part of a two-phased study from a sociologic point of view of an emergent universal health problem. Key words: education, antidote, spread of HIV/ AIDS As deadly AIDS remains incurable, and HIV, which causes the disease, is becoming more elusive and thwarting every effort to render it impotent, health authorities, government, nongovernmental or- ganizations, sociologists, health educators, and vari- ous health-related researchers are reappraising the existing methods of curtailing the infection. The need to re-evaluate control strategies is predicated on the growing incidence of the disease despite various programs put in place to check the menace. In the first ever country-to-country analyses of AIDS spread jointly put together by the United Nations and World Health Organization, it was obvious that the rate at which the deadly infection is spreading is quite embarrassing (“Spread of HIV/AIDS,” 1998). As the number of individuals and households af- fected by HIV multiplies, so the social impact of the epidemic both widens and deepens, health facilities are stretched to supply services, and social support systems and traditional coping mechanisms face un- precedented challenges. There is a profound social impact of AIDS in developing countries to which attention must be drawn (Holland et al., 1990). According to Adegbenjo (2001), HIV/AIDS can be seen as a social issue, and thus the public has taken it up. Existing knowledge of sexuality, drug subcultures, lifestyles, health and illness, the mass media, racism, gender, and power are all being drawn upon to provide these explanations. The urgency of the perceived need to change people’s behaviors rapidly in the face of a global threat to human health has called attention to the value of social sciences and medicine. There are growing fears about the rate at which AIDS is spreading across the globe today. In 20 years, it has become the greatest pandemic ever, and indications are that it will continue to increase. For example, in Zimbabwe, it is estimated that 25% of people aged between 15 and 49 years are infected with HIV (Chireshe & Chireshe, 2003). It is also estimated that over 36 million are infected with HIV Adesoji Oni, BAEd, MEd, PhD, is lecturer in the depart- ment of teacher education, faculty of education, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. JOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIATION OF NURSES IN AIDS CARE, Vol. 16, No. 2, March/April 2005, 40-48 doi:10.1016/j.jana.2005.01.003 Copyright © 2005 Association of Nurses in AIDS Care