Director General of the National Agency for Control of AIDS, Dr Temitope Ilori, has expressed dismay that Nigeria still has the highest burden of children born with HIV and urged more attention to be paid by all stakeholders to stem new HIV cases, particularly among children and key populations such as sex workers and youths.
Dr Ilori, during a courtesy call to the university college hospital in Ibadan, stated that the prevention of transmission of HIV from mother to child is a key area that NACA is targeting as Nigeria continues to progress in meeting the global target that HIV cease to be a public health threat by 2030.
According to her, pregnant women must be educated and informed that they should book in health facilities where there are trained personnel to have access to skilled birth attendants and medications that ensure low or suppression of HIV viral load in order to eliminate transmission of HIV to their unborn babies.
She declared that engagement with traditional birth attendants, missionaries, and religious homes where women deliver, as well as traditional and community leaders, is important for reducing the burden of children born with HIV.
Dr Ilori said that her facility tour in Oyo State was a bid to understand the situation of HIV in the state, even as the agency is looking at a business model tagged “alignment 2.0,” a sustainability agenda for the federal government to own all processes in Nigeria’s response to HIV/AIDS.
“We are on course; we are doing well. Statistics show us that we are closing the gap, and we believe that before 2030, HIV will no longer be a public health threat.
“This is a familiarisation tour; as policymakers, we don’t want to just sit down in Abuja and make policies without actually carrying along the end users. The tour is in a bid to understand the processes so that we can improve on them.”
In a remark, Permanent Secretary, Oyo State Ministry of Health, Dr Kehinde Ayinde, declared that Oyo State is leading the country in the ownership of HIV programmes with its 1600 delivery points and its support for over 1004 TBA points that provide HIV service deliveries.
“Last year, we had facility testing of 125, 493 mothers; at the community, we were able to test 29,420 mothers. Among those tested, we have 1179 positive mothers, and the majority of them are from the community. In the early infant diagnosis, 16 of the children were positive for HIV.”
In her welcome address, Oyo State Health Commissioner, Dr Oluwaserimi Ajetunmobi, said Oyo State was intensifying its community engagements on HIV and working on a sustainability plan to bring HIV care into regular clinics, as well as urging people living with HIV/AIDS to also take ownership of their health for a better quality of life.
The Chief Medical Director of University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Professor Jesse Otegbayo, also welcomed the DG of NACA at UCH. Ibadan said Nigeria needs to promote the use of over-the-counter HIV self-testing kits in a bid for more people to be tested and to access HIV treatment, as well as the director general of NACA supporting more grants for HIV research in the country.
Read Also: Danish govt launches N2.4bn security, vocational skills programme in Bayelsa
