Institute To Conduct Study On HIV/AIDS Patients Disorder

The Institute of Human
    Virology, Nigeria (IHVN) says it will conduct Africa’s largest prevalence study on common mental disorders among a sample of people living with HIV/AIDS.
The Chief Executive Officer of IHVN, Dr Patrick Dakum, told newsmen in Abuja, Monday, that the study would focus on depression and substance use.
He said the initiative was conceived in a bid to improve the quality of life of people living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria.
Dakum added that the study, which would involve over 1,000 people living with the disease, when completed, would help the institute in the implementation of its programmes and policies on HIV/AIDS.
He said the IHVN had signed an agreement with Gede Foundation, an NGO, for the purpose of collaborating with the organisation for the study.
According to Dakum, the letter of agreement for the research, which is funded by Gede Foundation, was recently signed in Abuja by representatives of both organisations.
“We do know scientifically that HIV attacks the neural nerves too.
“But to what extent that is, and to what extent do we have primary depression and other issues associated with it is what we will try to uncover.
Reacting, a psychiatrist, Dr Manilla Brown told The Tide Health desk test the study would be apt considering the level of depression fraud not only among people with HIV/AIDS but those affected by the nations present economic and political state.
In his words “we need these kind of studies especially in this time when people are weighed down by health, economic and political situation of the times. In the faces of this present times, people’s health still remain paramount. And so I commend the IHVN for the initiative and urged all persons living with HIV/AIDS and other forms of mental deranged cases to make themselves available for the study in order to better their health conditions and that of the entire nation”.

Lady Godknows Ogbulu