Love, stigma, and the health worker rewriting Nigeria’s HIV narrative

In 2020, Ibrahim* sat in a clinic waiting room, his palms damp with anxiety. He had been in love before, but this time was different. Zara* was kind, intelligent, and pregnant with his child. He wanted to marry her and build a future, but he was HIV-positive.

He had lived with the virus for years, quietly, managing his health with discipline. His viral load was undetectable. But he feared her reaction. In a society where HIV still carries the weight of shame, disclosure felt like handing her a reason to leave. And he couldn’t bear to lose her.

So he asked for help.

He walked up to a public health officer and asked, plainly, “What do I do? I can’t lie to her, but I can’t lose her either.”

That officer was Felicity Anyor.

With eight years of experience in HIV response, Felicity didn’t flinch. Instead, she built a plan. She invited them both for counselling, carefully created a safe space, and guided them through a conversation that would change everything.

When Zara returned from the individual session, her eyes were full of questions, tears and fear. But she didn’t walk away.

That day, she facilitated more than just a medical revelation; she built a bridge between fear and understanding. Through a well-structured counselling session, education, and empathy, she helped this serodiscordant couple (one partner positive, the other negative) realise that love, trust, and health could coexist.

“I followed up with them, and months later, she gave birth. The marriage happened. They have a negative child, and they are happy. The woman remains negative, and the man is doing excellently well.”
This wasn’t just a medical win; it was a victory of love over stigma, made possible by a health worker who knew that care is more than drugs. It’s listening. It’s walking people through fear, building trust where silence used to live.

For Felicity, stories like this are not rare exceptions. They are central to her mission of dismantling misinformation, empowering people to live fully with or without HIV, and ensuring that systems of care are robust and sustainable.

From the cosmopolitan streets of Abuja to the conservative enclaves of Gombe in Nigeria’s northeast, her work has spanned cultural, geographic, and social boundaries.

Her journey into public health was seeded early. Raised by a retired nurse-midwife mother and a father who believed in nurturing his children’s passions, she grew up watching her mother provide care that not only healed bodies but also uplifted communities.

“It gave her so much joy,” Felicity recalls, “and in turn it gave me so much joy. So I wanted to be part of that change.”

At just ten years old, she knew she wanted to pursue a career in healthcare, particularly medicine. However, life charted a different course for her. After two unsuccessful attempts at studying medicine, the realities of extended years of study and the complexities of private medical education led her to a new direction.

Studying public health at Madonna University and later earning a master’s degree in the same field, Felicity’s career has spanned Nigeria’s diverse regions–from Abuja, Niger, Delta and now to the Northeast, where she lives in Gombe State.

Her professional journey began with a posting to the Department of Public Health in Abuja during her National Youth Service Corps service year. There, she gained hands-on experience in epidemiology and worked briefly with the World Health Organisation on immunisation-preventable diseases affecting children.

After NYSC, Felicity joined the Solina Centre for International Development and Research, starting as a data entry clerk and later promoted to the office of the program officer. She worked on the ACHIEVE project focused on HIV intervention, overseeing teams and implementing programmes that directly improved care delivery.

Later, she transitioned to the ACE project, a major HIV sustainability initiative across several Nigerian states. There, she helped state governments develop strategies to maintain HIV care systems without international donor funding.

She also collaborated with patent medicine vendors, laboratories, and private clinics to expand community-level HIV testing and treatment access.

This groundwork proved invaluable when the inevitable happened: the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), one of the largest funders of HIV programmes in Nigeria, began scaling back its support. For many, this signalled a looming crisis.

Thanks to the sustainability strategies Felicity and her team helped design, several states were not caught off guard. Local governments had already begun allocating resources, strengthening private sector partnerships, and integrating HIV services into existing public health structures.

Today, despite funding cuts, Nigeria continues to provide free post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) and other essential HIV treatment. “It’s not just about reacting to emergencies; it’s about building a system that can stand on its own,” she says.

Now a Technical Officer (North East Zone), National AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, and STIs Control Programme (NASCP) for the Federal Ministry of Health, Nigeria, Felicity is based in Gombe State, where she oversees HIV programming across the entire northeast, including Bauchi, Taraba, Adamawa, Borno, and Gombe.

Arriving in the North was a culture shock. “I’m coming from Asaba, where I don’t have any restrictions on anything; I can get whatever I want when I want it,” she says.

The food, the gender dynamics, even her clothing choices required adjustment. “Should I wrap my head? Am I supposed to go out at this time?” she asked herself often in those early days. But over time, she thrived.

“The fact that I cannot just get a coffee here. The fact that I can’t get loaded fries here. The fact that I came here and looked for jollof rice for 2 weeks, and I did not find it. I had to quickly start cooking.”

Convincing male-dominated stakeholder groups in her environment to adopt her strategies for HIV programme sustainability was no mean feat either.

At the heart of Felicity’s work is an unrelenting fight against HIV stigma. She frequently speaks in churches, social groups, and even informal gatherings, encouraging people to get tested, speak up, and seek treatment. “It’s not a death sentence,” she emphasises. “A person on drugs is ten times healthier than a person who is positive and does not even know their status.”

She uses sensitisation as her primary tool, engaging communities to understand the science of HIV, challenging myths, and helping people see HIV-positive individuals not as threats, but as humans deserving love and care. Her counseling is deeply personal and empathetic, which is why success stories like the serodiscordant couple are possible.

Felicity is also deeply involved in data-driven health planning. “Anything that is not documented is not done,” she says. She uses national databases to track HIV trends, measure the impact of interventions, and advocate for policy changes. For her, every number represents a person, a life that must not be left behind.

Despite her successes, Felicity’s career has come at a personal cost. Frequent relocations have taken a toll on her social life and emotional well-being. She’s cried over projects rejected by supervisors, questioned whether it was all worth it, and struggled with loneliness in unfamiliar cities. But she remains undeterred.

“It’s building me,” she insists. “I take them as the days that have built me for the time I am in or the place I’m in.”

At the end of a demanding workday, Felicity finds solace in sleep and movies. Fictional worlds offer her escape and renewal: tools for vocabulary building, imagination, and relaxation. Although she no longer has the bustling social calendar she once enjoyed in Abuja, she has gained something greater: purpose and impact.

To those considering similar paths, Felicity offers sage advice: “Say no to stigma. Follow your path, follow your passion, and God’s willing, that passion will place you where you can do good, where you can leave a footprint, where you can create change.”

*Names have been changed to protect the sources’ identity.