Amaechi Calls For Mass Enlightenment Against HIV/AIDS

Rivers State Governor, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, has enjoined relevant government agencies to intensify massive public enlightenment campaign on daily basis against HIV/AIDS across the state until the prevalence rate drops significantly.

Governor Amaechi, who stated this Monday, at the official inauguration of the National Women Coalition on AIDS (NAWOCA), Rivers State chapter in Port Harcourt, said the surest way to prevent the dreaded disease was not abstinence alone but proper education and economic empowerment.

“If our women are economically buoyant they will be able to resist the temptation from men”, the governor stressed.

The State Chief Executive hinted that the target of government was to ensure that before the end of next year the prevalence rate of 7.3 per cent of HIV infection in the state drops to 5.4 per cent where it was two years ago.

To realise this target, Governor Amaechi specifically directed the Ministries of Health and Women Affairs to carry out massive campaign daily through radio and television jingles and other means of enlightenment.

According to him, such campaign should be done in the manner that would not frighten the people but encourage them to play safe, adding that drugs provided by government for the treatment of HIV/AIDS patients should not be sold but made available at the hospitals and the model Health Centres for the patients.

Governor Amaechi promised that government would grant the request made by the Network of Women Living With HIV / AIDS by providing them with a bus and other logistic support for effective campaign to create awareness on the need for people to stop contracting the disease.

On her part, the wife of the Rivers State Governor, Dame Judith Amaechi, said the inauguration of NAWOCA in the state was another milestone in the collective effort in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Dame Amaechi said the campaign against the dreaded disease would be spread to all the local government areas across the state so as to educate the people as the number of people infected with the virus was on the increase.