The Tide Correspondent Sweeps NACA Awards …As RSG Pledges Support To Combat HIV/AIDS

Tide Health Correspondent of The Tide Newspaper, Sogbeba Dokubo, last weekend, in Port Harcourt garnered two top awards from the South-South NACA Awards.
Dokubo took home the Outstanding Investigative Story and Outstanding Diversified News Story Awards.
She dominated the award list further with her NGO: Journalists’ Alliance Against HIV and Media Initiative Against HIV/AIDS.
Over the years, Dokubo has through her reports pushed for behavioural change and campaigned to raise awareness about the virus.
She stood out among other broadcast journalists from the Akwa Ibom State Broadcasting Corporation (AKBC).
The Outstanding Media Performance Award went to Imaobong Akpabio of AKBC, while Amelok Ndong of the Pioneer clinched the Outstanding Feature Story award.
Meanwhile, the Rivers State Government has affirmed that it has broken new grounds in its effort to deliver quality healthcare to Rivers people.
The state Deputy Governor, Dr. Ipalibo Harry Banigo disclosed this during the first NACA HIV Award Night at Landmark Hotel in Port Harcourt, last Thursday.
Represented by the Permanent Secretary, Rivers State Ministry of Transport, Mrs. Fanny Barango, Banigo said as part of deliberate efforts to give succour to people living with HIV, Wike abolished health facility user-fees for persons living with HIV and took over payments in all public health facilities.
Banigo said the governor had established a Faculty of Medicine in the Rivers State University Teaching Hospital that has been upgraded with state-of-the-art equipment.
According to the deputy governor, the Mother and Child Hospital, Dr. Peter Odili Cancer/Cardiovascular Disease Diagnostic and Treatment Centre, the upgraded Government House Clinic, as well as the zonal hospitals in the three senatorial districts were set up to add value to the health system.
Banigo expressed delight that NACA South-South Zonal Office produced NACA HIV Media Reference Package for Practitioners, and noted that it has been adopted as a national resource document, which has been placed on the website of NACA for wider dissemination to the public.
She said as the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) Ambassador to NACA in Rivers State, she would continue to collaborate with NACA in perfecting the good work they were carrying out in the South-South Zone and Nigeria as a nation.
Shortly after being announced as the state with the Outstanding Media Advocacy, Rivers State Commissioner for Information and Communications, Pastor Paulinus Nsirim, pledged support of state government against checking HIV /AIDs.
Nsirim, who spoke through the Director of Enlightenment in the ministry, Mr Celestine Ogolo, said the state has been partnering with NACA , National Council Against HIV and AIDS in the fight to curb the virus.
He said, “All the platforms of our ministry are open and available for the campaigns”.
Lauding the award recipients and South-South Office of NACA, Nsirim commended organisations and individuals who are on the frontline to check the menace, and urged them not to relent.
On her part, the South-South Zonal Coordinator of NACA, Dr. Uduak Daniel, explained that the intention of the zonal office is to ensure that all the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) live up to expectations as far as containing the spread of HIV is concerned, even in the midst of COVID-19.
“Not long after the Zonal Office was commissioned in 2020, the corona virus pandemic came in and HIV now had other public health issues to compete with.
“This made us in the South-South very innovative and flexible working with other partners and stakeholders. We were able to ensure that we had contingency plans for the NACA and COVID-19 integration”, she said.
Daniel explained further that working with partners, “we were able to ensure that HIV was still in the fore front of everything public health”, adding that while it had not been easy, there had been rewards.
Some of the gains recorded within the period in the South-South Zonal response, she said, include the strengthening of structures in NACAs in the Zone, such that even those without functional boards could still operate effectively.

By: Soibi Max-Alalibo & Kevin Nengia