A medical practitioner, Dr Godwin Uwaoma, said on Monday that girls in Aba, Abia engage in active S£xual activities from the age of 10, raising higher chances of contracting HIV.
Uwaoma, the Chairman of the Thematic Working Group at the Nigerian Faith Based Advisory Council for AIDS (NFACA), disclosed in Aba that a 2014 research revealed the development.
He said that the study was conducted to find out the awareness of preventive measures among youths in the secondary schools for the Department of Public Health at the Imo State University.
“We discovered that some girls in Aba start S£xual activities at the age 10 to 12 and that at the age of 12, girls in Aba have ‘regular boyfriends’ with whom they agree to have S£x regularly.
“This was not known before. Usually HIV prevention was targeted at age 15 upward but we now know that before 15 they have become S£xually active.
“And there is a lot of difference between when you are forced into it and you remove yourself thereafter and when at this age you now have a regular partner.
“That was what we discovered and it is not normal but an aberration but obviously the fact is there,” he said.
At a lecture organised by the Aba chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) to mark their week, Uwaoma called for prevention rather than cure which was unavailable for HIV cases.
He urged the students to desist from watching por.nographic films, playing S£xual games with opposite S£x and keeping bad friends to save them from S£xual temptations.
In another lecture titled “S£x and Puberty”, Dr Kenneth Ngwogu, a lecturer at the Abia State University, said that puberty brought changes in character and body composition to young people.
Noting that most youths ruined their lives through dangerous actions like early S£x, Ngwogu urged them to consult doctors or adults to manage the challenges of puberty.
He charged the youth to desist from S£xual activities which could refocus their attention while in school to reach their goals of becoming successful people.