Eradicating HIV/AIDS in Nigeria by 2030

NAN

The National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) has disclosed  that HIV and AIDS prevalence has reduced in Nigeria.

According to the agency,  the country achieves this as a result of government’s resolve to meet the target of 2030 set by the United Nations AIDS (UNAIDS) to ensure HIV and AIDS-free world.

The United Nations {UN} reiterated  that the next five years will prove to be more crucial as the organisation aims to end AIDS epidemic by 2030. Commenting on the claim of UNAIDS, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon admits that the world has delivered on halting and reversing the AIDS epidemic.

According to Moon, ``Now, we must commit to ending the AIDS epidemic as part of the Sustainable Development Goals’’, he said in a statement.

In an effort at meeting the target in Nigeria, Prof. John Idoko, Director-General, NACA, said government agencies at all levels had embarked on programmes aimed at fighting HIV and AIDS.

According to him, HIV and AIDS have been on the decline in Nigeria and cases of new AIDS infection has reduced by 35 per cent in the past four years.

In his words, ``Nigeria’s AIDS response has gained steady momentum in the past four years. We have managed to turn the tide.

``We now need new commitment and support and we are calling on Nigerians and the country’s partners to renew their commitment to ending AIDS by 2030,’’ he said.

Irrespective of challenges, the UN insists that stakeholders must double easy access to medicines in the next five years to meet the international goal of stopping HIV and AIDS.

UNAIDS Executive Director, Michel Sidibe, observed that ending HIV and AIDS by 2030 would require increased funding to 31.1 billion dollars by 2020.

``Every five years, we have more than double the number of people on life-saving treatment; we need to do it just one more time to break the AIDS scourge and keep it from rebounding,’’ he said.

Sidibe said the number of HIV-positive people with access to antiretroviral drugs had jumped from 23 per cent in 2010 to 41 per cent in the past five years.

He said since 2000, infections in children dropped by nearly 60 per cent and total infections fell by more than a third, while AIDS-related deaths had gone down by about 40 per cent since 2004.

Sidibe said there were 36.9 million people living with HIV in 2014 and two million new infections while AIDS-related illnesses caused 1.2 million deaths in the same year in the world.

He, nevertheless, advised that said it was important to increase funding and develop measures that would target specific local risk groups rather than blanket countrywide policies.

``We must take HIV services to the people who are most affected and ensure that these services are delivered in a safe, respectful environment with dignity and free from discrimination,’’ he said.

In his view, Mr Abdulkadir Ibrahim, the National Secretary of Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria, noted that HIV testing should the first and most important step towards ending AIDS.

He said that the rate of HIV testing was low, noting that unless the testing bottleneck was addressed, it might take longer than 2030 to end HIV and AIDS.

``Also where more than 800,000 people living with HIV need Anti Retroviral Therapy and less than 50 per cent of the number does not have access to the therapy will impede the target,’’ he observed.