Director-general, National Agency for the Control of Aids (NACA), Gambo Aliyu, has expressed concern that international and domestic funding to combat the HIV/AIDS scourge and achieve epidemic control in Nigeria is shrinking.
The NACA DG says Nigeria’s domestic funding for HIV is estimated to be below 30 percent, even as the country accounts for more than half of new infections and deaths from AIDS-related illness, and only less than 40 percent of adolescents and youths have comprehensive knowledge about HIV.
Aliyu, who said this while addressing a World Aids Day (WAD) press conference in Abuja on Wednesday, said Nigeria still had a lot to do in the face of shrinking funding. He however informed that President Muhammadu Buhari had approved N2.5 billion to increase the number of patients treated by the government from 50,000 to 100,000.
The director-general, while noting that the theme of the 2019 WAD celebration is “Communities make the difference,” said communities were urgently needed to ensure that HIV remained on the political agenda and galvanise international and national funding for the disease.
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Aliyu said communities, which include network of people living with HIV, women and young people, peer educators, counsellors, community health workers, four-door service providers, civil society organisations, religious and traditional rulers, policy makers and activists play a significant role in the national response to response to HIV.
According to Aliyu, communities are vital to facilitating an enabling environment that promotes equal access to HIV prevention, treatment and care services for Nigerians.
Also speaking at the conference, Araoye Segilola, national coordinator, National AIDS/STI and Hepatitis, decried that Nigerian youths, adolescents were not accessing treatment services while people with disabilities were cut off.
Segilola stressed that government interventions could only make meaningful progress if the communities were engaged actively and had access to treatment and care services.
Chairman, Senate Committee on Primary Health Care and Communicable diseases, Chukwuka Utazi, also speaking, said the Nigerian government would be commemorating the WAD day with a renewed commitment towards Nigerians living with HIV, through the launch of a campaign tagged U=U (Undetectable and therefore Untransmitable) to increase the awareness and support for the target population.
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The chairman noted that the campaign was key to Nigeria’s effort achieve the UNAIDS ‘ 90-90-90 target by 2020.
He said the campaign would be geared towards supporting Nigerians living with HIV who are on Anti-Retroviral drugs for treatment to reach their goals of viral load suppression.
“As we lunch this campaign next week in FCT, Nigerian communities will be charged with the responsibility of supporting their fellow Nigerians living with HIV to achieve undetectable viral load.
“Achieving undectatable viral load safeguards the health of every Nigerians living with HIV, their loved ones and unborn children,” he said.
He assured that the campaign would not be limited to FCT but would be taken to all nooks and crannies of the country to ensure that HIV was a foregone issue in the country.
