**4. Discussion**

An overall prevalence of 5.21% was recorded in the Fondonera community of west region of Cameroon, which is greater than 2.8% reported by the Demographic and Health Survey and Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey (DHS-MICS) in 2011 for this same region. The number sampled was small as compared to other studies because people in this village rarely go to the hospital even for routine checkups; hence, the data collected represent the actual number of individuals who willingly demanded for the test. From our results, 91.4% of individuals coming for HIV screening are farmers, and this proves that a greater population of the indigenes of this area are farmers. Females (especially pregnant women and those carrying out pre-marital tests) regularly come for consultation as well as for HIV testing than men in this area. Prevalence of the disease with sex indicates that males were more infected than females; this projects a poor quality and quantity of work force and food security as they contribute more for the family upkeep as well as to agricultural work force than women. According to the DHS-MICS [15, 16], women were most infected than men, and this same report was made in a rural community known as Noni in the North West region of Cameroon by Manu et al. [4]. HIV prevalence was the highest in individuals of ages ≥36 years, this result is similar to the HIV prevalence curve for age plotted by DHS-MICS [16] which indicated peak prevalence in ages between 35 and 39 years and above. From community visit observation, 90% of individuals from 35 years and above living in this village did not go to school and 95% of youths below 30 years have at least attended primary school. Lack of education among parents in this village has led to their unawareness of the transmission and prevention of the disease as well as lack of parental doctrine about the disease to their children. Parents in this community are equally high consumers of alcohol (beer or palm wine) which renders them senseless, exposing them to risky behaviors and disease. The years between 2014 till date recorded the highest HIV-positive cases in this community. This can be justified by referring to some socio-economic reasons which involve relocation of youths from cities during festive periods into this community and introduction of risky habits brought from the town, exposing the community to more danger. In addition, the opening up of the Santchou-Fondonera road has increased accessibility by indigenes of this village and visitors based in towns to frequently visit this area as compared to past years. From our frequency table analysis, 75.1% of individuals coming for HIV test constitute pregnant women and only 24.9% carry out the test because they are sick. It is clear from these figures that HIV test is not a priority of sick patients in this village and they prefer routine tests like stool, typhoid, and malaria. The high screening percentage for pregnant women is because HIV test is obligatory for them through ANC teachings. Even though a greater fraction consulting is made of pregnant women, they rather recorded low (3.0%) prevalence as compared to 10% in cases testing for sick reasons. This low prevalence in pregnant women in this community is still epidemiologically significant because a seropositive pregnant woman being mainly married have a far-reaching implication to the family as well as the socio-economic life of the people [17]. Based on the marital status and the frequency of consultations, free persons (single, divorced, widows, and widowers) recorded an 11.3% testing frequency as compared to 88.7% in married persons. From the prevalence results, free persons were infected than married, and this finding is contrary to that of Manu et al. [4] who reported that married were more infected than unmarried. It is logical that free persons have multiple sex partners to a greater extent than married people in a village setting like our study community. Such risky habits expose those free individual to HIV infection than those legally married; therefore, the present result was expectant. Fondonera community is an agriculture-dominated area with a greater population of indigenes resident in the villages of this community being farmers. This is portrayed from the global hospital statistics of patients consulting yearly according occupation, with 91.4% of them consulting as farmers. It was interesting even though vexing to know that farmers had the second highest consultation frequency after traders than any other occupation with no association. This finding is similar to that of Nyambi et al. [7] who reported that there is no association of HIV infection with occupation of participants in rural areas of Cameroon. Traders were highly infected because their mobility is the highest hence confirming the risk of mobile populations in the contraction of the disease. This finding is similar to that of Njukeng et al. [17] who reported highest cases with traders. The consequences of high farmer infection in this rural agriculturedependent society can be deduced from the report of Gillespie and Kadiyala [18] in Rwanda who said that 60–80% reduction rates witnessed in farm labor are due to illness and death of infected households. It was noted from respondents about prevention strategies that 80% of them used condom for safe sex and only 20% preferred abstinence to the use of condoms. A further analysis was made on HIV prevalence among users and nonusers of condom as prevention strategy, and it revealed that 62% of infected cases did not use condom during sex

**4. Discussion**

An overall prevalence of 5.21% was recorded in the Fondonera community of west region of Cameroon, which is greater than 2.8% reported by the Demographic and Health Survey and Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey (DHS-MICS) in 2011 for this same region. The number sampled was small as compared to other studies because people in this village rarely go to the hospital even for routine checkups; hence, the data collected represent the actual number of individuals who willingly demanded for the test. From our results, 91.4% of individuals coming for HIV screening are farmers, and this proves that a greater population of the indigenes of this area are farmers. Females (especially pregnant women and those carrying out pre-marital tests) regularly come for consultation as well as for HIV testing than men in this area. Prevalence of the disease with sex indicates that males were more infected than females; this projects a poor quality and quantity of work force and food security as they contribute more for the family upkeep as well as to agricultural work force than women. According to the DHS-MICS [15, 16], women were most infected than men, and this same report was made in a rural community known as Noni in the North West region of Cameroon by Manu et al. [4]. HIV prevalence was the highest in individuals of ages ≥36 years, this result is similar to the HIV prevalence curve for age plotted by DHS-MICS [16] which indicated peak prevalence in ages between 35 and 39 years and above. From community visit observation, 90%

**Figure 2.** Sexual practice based on the use and nonusage of condom for safe sex.

124 Current Topics in Tropical Emerging Diseases and Travel Medicine

and only 38% of infected were aware of the necessity of condom in protection against STDs. It was reported by shop sellers during interviews that most of their customers are students and teachers who reported zero HIV prevalence as compared to parents who had high cases. This finding is in consonance with the report of Zacharie and Barthelemy [19] who reported that abstinence was the best option by participants to control the spread of the disease followed by use of condoms. From the abovementioned findings, it can be deduced that even though condom users recorded low prevalence than noncondom uses, condom still failed because it did not give a 100% protection from the virus hence the existence of positive cases with users.

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