The
Federal Government on Monday in Abuja expressed appreciation on the
significant progress made in the fight against HIV/AIDS, but declared
that the country records 281,000 new infections yearly.
According to the Federal Government, only 400,000
persons living with the disease are receiving drugs out of the 3 million
people currently affected. About 1.5 million people are required to be
on life saving anti-retroviral drugs.
The Director-General of the National Action Committee
on AIDS, Prof. John Idoko, stated this at the zonal consultations on
ownership for sustainable HIV response where he also attributed the
irregular funding of NACA by donor agencies to global meltdown in the
past three years.
He said, “We have seen very significant progress in
the fight against HIV and AIDS in Nigeria – more than 25 per cent HIV
decline between 2001 and 2009. However, we still have very significant
gaps.
“Nigeria has the largest burden of transmission of
mother child of HIV in the world – 30 per cent with about 70,000
children born every year with HIV. These children hardly live to see
their third birthday without treatment.”
Idoko said much remained to be accomplished if future
generations were to live in a world in which the threat of AIDS had
been overcome.
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