Rivers Ranks 10th In HIV Cases

The Community Mobilisation Officer, of Rivers State Action Committee on AIDs (RIVSACA), Mrs Grace Ebere has said that the state now ranks 10th position in HIV related cases in the country.

She made the disclosure at a one-day sensitisation on HIV/AIDs in the Ministry of Local Government Affairs  in Port Harcourt.

Ebere stressed that the exercise became imperative due to the rise in the prevalence rate of the disease both in the state and country at large.

She pleaded for urgent dissemination of the message to the grassroots so as to properly guide them on the right tips about HIV/AIDs prevention.

The RIVSACA arrow head quoted statistics as putting the prevalence rate of the virus in the state at 6.0 per cent, which she said is on the high side, while urging the people to always get tested.

According to her, that HIV only becomes a killer when it has transformed to the forth level called AIDs, at which point, the immune system of the affected person would have been destroyed.

“At that point,  the individual stands the risk to be attacked by any kind of disease due to the failure of the immune system”.

She noted that early knowledge of one’s HIV status avails one the opportunity of early disease  can still live many years if adequate attention is given to it.

The health work, hinted that about eight health centres in the state are now ready to render services to HIV/AIDs patients.

However, the Director of Planning, Research and Statistics in the Ministry, Sir Mbadiwe David Wodo, has called for a meeting of stakeholders, so that council chairmen can make use of the opportunity and reach out to their people.