HIV/AIDS: Institute Seeks Increased FG’s Funding

The Institute of Human Vi
rology (IHVN) has called for  an increased Federal Government investment in  the fight against HIV/AIDS in order to move from being a donor recipient nation.
The Chief Executive Officer  of the Institute, Mr Patrick Dakum, made the call while speaking with newsmen at a forum in Abuja, last Sunday.
He said that if the government could provide adequate funding to combat the disease, donor countries would only need to give complementary and technical assistance.
“ Given the burden of the disease and the current support that is there, the level of government support is still within the region of 20-30 per cent so far of the total funding currently being provided for the fight against HIV.
“ And from the donor perspective and implementing partner perspective we definitely want to see increased commitment and funding by government.
“ In the last government we were informed of a plan called the presidents comprehensive response plan which was supposed to provide close to about $500 million from the government but I am not too sure that money was made available,” Dakum stated.
He said that the U.S. government had begun a process called “country ownership“, adding that there was need for Nigeria to take more responsibility in terms of providing funds to agencies responsible for the control of the virus.
According to Dakum, there is currently enough manpower to take charge of the implementation of various programmes.
He, however, noted that lack of financing was a major challenge.
“What is key for us now is adequate and effective funding. I say adequate the amount must be right and effective it must be used in the right place because you can have a budget but the budget is not used for what the needs are.
“Different states have different needs. You have states where the infrastructure is ok they probably need to take responsibility for lab support take responsibility for drugs.
“For some other states especially where you have high disease burden it is a combination of everything. The government must play its role in ensuring prevention services are ongoing they must also partner with donor agencies in taking responsibility for the care of the patients.
“ Then second of course is community involvement, a government cannot do it alone, it’s a partnership. Community involvement in terms of prevention and care is very crucial to an AIDS free generation.“
The CEO said that the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) was currently working with the implementing partners to provide equipments and properly monitor the disease in two states.
He said the development would enable relevant agencies monitor the effectiveness of the plan in order to transmit same to more states.
Dakum reiterated the institutes resolve to continue to provide support to both public and private sector hospitals in Nigeria in accordance with the framework of the Nigerian health sector plan strategic plan.
He observed that the support the institute received was largely from the global fund and that the funds enabled the institute to procure equipment, anti-retroviral drugs, training and technical support of its staff.
He said: “With the global fund, as principal recipients we have received about $11 million and we are looking forward to what the new funding mechanism for the global fund will provide in terms of funding.
“The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) was provided with funding from the US government to provide a laboratory that can be a quality check whenever there is an outbreak of any disease.
“The building is almost ready and the institute of Virology charged with the responsibility of providing equipments, capacity and training for the laboratory personnel has done so as the equipments are already available.
“This equipments cost about a $1 million and this fund was provided by the US government through the NCDC.“
Dakum, however, said that the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS (PEPFA) had been providing funding to the institute, adding that in 2010 it received $3.8 million grant, which lasted four years.
According to Dakum, there is currently enough manpower to take charge of the implementation of various programmes but lack of financing has been a major challenge.
“What is key for us now is adequate and effective funding. I say adequate the amount must be right and effective and must be used in the right place because you can have a budget but the budget is not used for what the needs are.