.,.unhappy with PMTCT rate
From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS otherwise known as UNAIDS has demanded accelerated progress in HIV prevention in Nigeria.
The UN Agency said that such accelerated measures would, expectedly, strengthen the chances of Nigeria to meet the 2030 global HIV target in Nigeria by first halting new infections.
Dr. Angeli Achrekar, UNAIDS Deputy Executive Director, Programmes, made the demand in her keynote address delivered in Abuja, at the second day of 2024 Nigeria HIV Prevention Conference organized by National Agency for the Control of Aids (NACA).
She was unhappy that despite the availability of a wide array of effective HIV prevention tools and methods, and a massive scale-up of HIV treatment in several countries within recent years, new infections among adults globally have not decreased sufficiently as expected.
She made reference to 2022 report which indicated that about 4000 adults and children acquired HIV each day resulting in a total of 1.3 million new HIV infections, hence intensive effort is urgently needed to reach the global target of fewer than 370,000 new HIV infections annually by 2025.
She added: “Despite its efficacy, there remains a stark underinvestment in HIV prevention in Nigeria. In sub-Saharan Africa, only 42 per cent of districts with high HIV incidence have dedicated HIV prevention programmes.
“We, therefore, require an acceleration of progress in HIV prevention which is not only a moral imperative but also a pragmatic and cost-effective public health strategy.”
She thus registered her displeasure with the state of Prevention-of-Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) in Nigeria, saying “the coverage of prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) services has remained low in Nigeria with a reach of only 30 percent of eligible women in the country.
“Evidently, Nigeria is among the countries with the slowest decline in new HIV infections among children. In 2020, there were an estimated 21,000 new child HIV infections in Nigeria, the highest in the world, which accounted for 14 per cent of the global estimate.
“Funding seems not to be one of the major challenges of PMTCT programme in Nigeria. So, we would want to see a renewed and intensive efforts to achieve the level of scale-up needed to meet the PMTCT goals.
“The future of Nigeria’s children cannot be left unchecked, hence concerted and urgent action must be taken to avert children being consigned to live a lifetime with a virus that is now preventable. We need to end the vertical transmission of the epidemic to have an AIDS-free generation in Nigeria
“Inequalities fuelled by social rejection and discrimination, marginalization and criminalization of communities, gender-based violence have continued to harm the HIV response. They have hindered access to HIV services including prevention services.”
Meanwhile, NACA Director General, Dr. Temitope Ilori, appreciated the support so far received from donor partners particularly the UNAIDS, reassuring the partners of more effort to sustain the successes achieved over the years as regards the fight against HIV/AIDS in Nigeria.
She was also optimistic that the conference will herald superior ideas/solutions that would assist the country achieve its desire goals particularly as regards the global HIV target.