…Seeks increase in domestic funding
As Nigeria’s HIV/AIDS prevalence rate drops to 1.4%, the National Agency for the Control of AIDS has called on stakeholders to intensify awareness efforts by ensuring that adolescents, youths, sexually active men and women have adequate knowledge of HIV prevention to enable them protect themselves against the risk of contracting the infection.
According to the agency, prevention is key to HIV control and remains an essential part of any programme.
The drop in the country’s HIV/AIDS prevalence rate to 1.4% was contained in the preliminary findings of the Nigeria HIV/AIDS Indicator and Impact Survey recently launched by the Federal Government.
NAIIS, described by NACA, as the biggest HIV survey done by any country anywhere in the world, revealed that 1.9 million Nigerians now live with HIV.
Making the call at a media workshop in Lagos organised recently by NACA, Assistant Director, Research, Monitoring and Evaluation in the agency, Dr Amanze Ogbonna, said when the youths are properly equipped with information on HIV, it would help them avoid risky behaviour that will make them vulnerable to the infection.
Presenting the outcome of the NAIIS report to journalists at the workshop, Ogbonna said: “We need to ensure that youths, adolescents, and sexually active men and women are functionally knowledgeable. We need “HIV-competent” citizens. This is critical to the success of these strategic thrusts.”
Behaviours and conditions that put individuals at greater risk of contracting HIV, according to the World Health Organisation, include having unprotected anal or vaginal sex; having another sexually transmitted infection such as syphilis, herpes, chlamydia, gonorrhoea, and bacterial vaginosis.
Others are sharing contaminated needles, syringes and other injecting equipment.
In his presentation titled: “Trends of HIV Epidemic in Nigeria: NAIIS Results and the Way Forward”, Ogbonna noted that all-inclusive prevention measures of new HIV infections were required to protect from infection all those at risk, including the unborn, newborn, youths, adolescents, and sexually active adults as well as those exposed environmentally.
He noted: “We must put in place measures to suppress the virus in those who are infected in order to avert new infection, and reduce morbidity and mortality.
“We must also provide care and support to improve the quality of life of people living with HIV.”
According to him, it was also important that the country scale up HIV prevention measures that would help in achieving the UNAIDS 90-90-90 targets by 2020.
In 2014, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and partners launched the 90–90–90 targets; the aim was to diagnose 90% of all HIV-positive persons, provide antiretroviral therapy for 90% of those diagnosed, and achieve viral suppression for 90% of those treated by 2020.
Ogbonna appealed for increase in domestic funding for HIV/AIDS response in Nigeria in order to scale up treatment for PLWH, stressing that HIV services should be integrated into existing government health programmes and financing strategies.
Giving further insight into the survey, the assistant director, said the report revealed that the current national HIV prevalence was now 1.4% (15-49 years), with a total estimated 1.9 million persons living with HIV in Nigeria.
Prior to the survey, he said Nigeria had the second highest HIV/AIDS prevalence with 3.1 million persons living with infection.
According to the report, the number of women with HIV is twice the number of men that have it.
The state with the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS is now Akwa Ibom. The survey also shows that northern Nigeria has a lower HIV/AIDS burden than the South.
According to the survey, while the North-West has the lowest prevalence rate at 0.6 % the South-South geopolitical zone has the highest with 3.1%.
