World AIDS Day: Its time for Nigeria to make timely investments.
The Nigeria Network of NGOs and its members are calling on the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Federal Ministry of Health and the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) to develop a zero tolerance to the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria by redoubling their efforts to achieve universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support services as this is key to the attainment of the Nation’s developmental goals one of which is the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).We recall that the 2011 World AIDS report listed Nigeria as one with the second largest number of new HIV infections in the world and has insufficient HIV-related investments, severely curtailing the country’s capacity to address the magnitude of the epidemic. Total HIV investment in 2008 was about US$ 400 million, against a projected annual need of three times more than that figure by 2015. There is massive potential to reduce new HIV infections if these investments were to be made in line within epidemiological trends and appropriate programmatic approaches.
With a statistically significant reduction in the prevalence of HIV amongst pregnant women attending clinics, Nigeria stands within 20% to 39% range amongst countries with rapid increase in antiretroviral coverage resulting in an increased rate of universal access to treatment, care and support. Further ranking puts the country between 0-39percent amongst countries having significant gaps in their coverage of basic programmes to give pregnant women access to antiretrovirals to prevent new HIV infections among children.
Today we join hands with our members across the country who have worked tirelessly in communities to raise awareness on HIV/AIDS, carried out free testing and counseling services and mounted effective advocacy initiatives geared towards monitoring and influencing the efforts and commitments of governments at ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Nigeria to call on President Goodluck Jonathan through the Honorable Minster of Health, Prof. C.O Onyebuchi Chukwu and Prof. John Idoko, Director General, NACA, to take steps to examine the epidemiological dynamics of HIV/AIDs and direct resources towards populations most in need in the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria.
On this World AIDS Day, we join our members and international partners to call upon people living with HIV, leaders, communities, parents, civil society organizations, public officials charged with the responsibility of managing AIDs response in Nigeria, young people and the general public to look forward and work towards a world with Zero new HIV infections, Zero discrimination and Zero AIDS-related deaths.
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