ABUJA – Stakeholders in HIV and AIDS prevention on Monday converged on Abuja to review strategies in the fight and prevention of the virus.
The meeting is to validate the HIV National Prevention Plan.
It will also develop a procedure for government and partners to follow in the prevention of HIV and AIDS.
Mrs Uduak Daniel, Programme Co-ordinator, National Agency for
the Control of AIDS (NACA), tols newsmen that the new strategies would come from contributions of stakeholders at various levels.
“The difference between the last prevention plan and this one is that this will engage people at the community levels.
“We got stakeholders to look at four thematic areas that we can look at whenever we are talking about HIV and AIDS prevention.
“The improvement we have is that we work based on information not on projects that have been done but how the plan was used,” she said.
Daniel said emerging issues in treatment, pre-exposure prophylaxis in HIV prevention and getting data of young people had been identified as a problem that needed to be addressed.
She said the new strategies would also address the emerging issues and challenged in the prevention response of the virus.
Mr Yakubu Abubakar, Director HIV and AIDS Control, Bauchi State Agency for the Control of HIV and AIDS, TB, Leprosy and Malaria commended new measures put in place to fight the virus.
Abubakar said the previous prevention plan had so many disparities at the state and national level in terms of approach.
He said the new major prevention approach now in Bauchi state was the participation of religious leader at ensuring that couples know their HIV status before marriage.
“It is a strategy to prevent transmission of the disease, so that the wife or the husband does not give his partner the virus,’’ he said.
Also speaking, Dr Segun Oyedeji, HIV Prevention Specialist, Society for Family Health commended the new HIV preventive plan, adding that it would give a new direction to fight against the virus.
Oyedeji said the plan was clear and had no ambiguity, stressing that it would help in the control of the disease if properly used. (NAN)
