By Mustapha Yauri
Abuja – The Federal Government says it will start implementing strategies aimed at fast tracking HIV treatment and prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT) in January 2017.
The Minister of State for Health, Dr Osage Ehanire, said this at a news conference to commemorate the 2016 World AIDS Day on Thursday in Abuja.
He explained that the strategies will be aimed at achieving high increase in the uptake of HIV testing services, increase in number of persons enrolled for treatment and significant improvement in quality of services.
“At the beginning of the New Year, I will commission an ad-hoc committee to refine the terms of engagement with the private health sector especially the private laboratories,” he said.
He said the committee would be established with a view to enhancing proper accounting of private sector contribution of HIV testing in the country.
The minister added that the committee would provide appropriate linkage of HIV positive individuals to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support services.
Ehinare said he would empower and direct the National AIDS/STIs Control Programme (NASCP) to engage with PEPFAR and other critical stakeholders to work towards easy access to treatment.
According to him, the barriers and prevention services include the user fees, complex specimen transport arrangements for viral load and EID, in addition to making the health facilities user friendly.
“Already, we are making the necessary consultations and provisions to ensure that we put aside adequate resources for the implementation of the fast-track strategies.
“By resources I mean, effective logistics systems for securing reliable stock of necessary commodities including Anti Retro-Viral Therapy, test kits and reagents.
“We are also making effort to boost the human resources for health at facilities, funding for necessary procurements and strategic planning, among others,’’ he said
Dr Sani Aliyu, the Director-General, National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), said the conference’s theme, “Hands-on for HIV Prevention” was very appropriate.
He added that it reflects one of our key priorities to fast-track progress towards ending AIDS in the country by 2030.
According to him, Africa is home to about 70 per cent of the 36.7 million people living with HIV worldwide.
“With about 3 million people living with HIV in our country, Nigeria ranks second only to South Africa in terms of disease burden globally,” he said.
He added that in order to achieve the 2030 goal of HIV eradication, Nigeria must approach prevention as a continuum and adopt a ‘combination’ approach similar to what applies with Anti Retroviral Therapy (ART) .
He said treatment as prevention, whether pre- or post- exposure or established, is becoming the norm.
He renewed NACA’s commitment to a “much stronger, robust, inclusive and accountable national response” to HIV/AIDS burden in the country.
