HIV: Nigeria To Focus On Mother-To-Child Transmission

Director General, National Agency for the Control of AIDS, Prof. John Idoko,  says the country will focus on Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) of HIV.

Idoko said this in Abuja on Monday during a media briefing to commemorate the 2011 World AIDS Day (WAD), with the theme “Getting to Zero”.

“The country’s focus of the WAD 2011 is on elimination of MTCT of HIV in line with the national target of achieving 90 per cent coverage for PMTCT, for pregnant women detailed in the National Strategic Plan 2010-2015.

“The significance of this focus is hinged on the availability of technology for HIV positive parents to have HIV free children and the possibility of using pregnant women to generate an interest in HIV testing in their households. ’’

Idoko said the effort would enable the country to have comprehensive post-delivery care for HIV positive mothers and their babies.

He said there would be an integration of the PMTCT with other related services such as malaria, tuberculosis, maternal and child health, family planning and availability of comprehensive HIV services in communities through primary health care centres.

Idoko said the country’s prevalence rate of HIV had reduced from 4.6 per cent to 4.1 per cent, according to the 2010 sentinel survey.

He said that although there was a reduction in HIV prevalence in the country, he was alarmed at the high rate in some of the states, which was still of concern to national HIV response.

The director general said there has been a significant scale up of prevention, treatment, care and support.

“Currently in Nigeria, there are 446 anti-retroviral treatment sites, 675 PMTCT sites, 1046 HIV Counselling and Testing sites, while the assessment of new treatment and counselling sites was on-going, with plans to provide access to 20,000 patients in the next two years.

Idoko said the renovation of 900 Primary Health Care Centres (PHCs) as a component of the Global Fund Round Eight grant implementation had commenced.

He said the ministry of health and the agency were exploring ways to support local manufacturers of HIV test kits.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that NACA has begun consultations with the National Health Research Ethics Committee (NHREC) of the Federal Ministry of Health to enable it secure lincense for the establishment of an HIV and AIDS Research Ethics committee.

Idoko said the major challenge in the fight against HIV and AIDS still remained over dependence on donor support faced by the agency.

For vaccine production, he said, the country was still behind, noting that Nigeria was the first to develop a vaccine plan.

Idoko lamented that the country needed capacity building and funding to forge ahead in vaccine production.

He said, however, that the country had updated and reviewed its plan.

In his speech, Mr Edward Ogenyi, National Coordinator, Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria (NEPWHAN), said that care for people living with the virus was a great challenge to the network.

He tasked the Federal Government to ensure that the bill to fight discrimination against people living with HIV and AIDS was passed.

Ogenyi said: “ it is only when a cure is found that the country will say HIV and AIDS is finished”. (NAN)