Nigeria: Government Gets $201 Million to Fight HIV/Aids, Malaria

Daily Champion ( Lagos)

26 September 2007
Posted to the web 26 September 2007

Florence Udoh
Lagos

For coming third on the table of countries giving care to people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) behind India and South Africa respectively, Nigeria has won about $201 million to fight the disease and malaria for five year programmes.

According to the Executive Director of the Global Fund on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Professor Richard Feachman, who addressed newsmen in Lagos, said that the programmes are underway, but are depending on more research. He noted that the fight against HIV/AIDS is obviously critical to Nigeria and many other West African countries.

The Global Fund director observed that Nigeria is having HIV/AIDS prevalence rate of about 5.6 per cent, while in some states it is rising to about 12 per cent. He said it is a very important national priority for Nigeria to bring the rate down, but the success, he believed depends on voluntary counseling and treatment (VCT).

"We know we can bring down the rate if we do the VCT seriously on a big scale. Nigeria is not doing those things and there is no large scale of VCT available today in Nigeria. The preparation for those things has been laid down and soon we will roll out the programme everywhere in the country, which would bring success", he said.

Feachman said Global Fund is supporting 300 programmes in 130 countries, which is valued at $8 billion. About 60 per cent of the money he said is going to Africa and because Nigeria is placed specially in the history and growth of Global Fund has also benefited from it.

He revealed that both HIV/AIDS and malaria kills about 300,000 Nigerians yearly. Malaria, he said targets mostly children which can easily be overcome. The issue of HIV/AIDS, he regarded as a long hard struggle and has of course no easy solution. He was optimistic that with the fund provided and the efforts of Nigerians, there would be a major success with the fight against malaria.

While commenting on tuberculosis, he said there is no grant for that at the moment because Nigeria did not apply. However, he noted that Global Fund is conscious that Nigeria has a big tuberculosis problem because it goes hand in-glove with HIV/AIDS. He remarked that unless there is a serious attack on tuberculosis and AIDS, there could not be any meaningful achievement in the fight against HIV/AIDS, which is a very large task.

With the World Health Organization (WHO) target of placing three million people on anti-retroviral treatment (ART) before the end of 2007 (3X5), Chairman, NACA, Professor Babatunde Oshotimehin noted that the target is worth pursuing, but slightly disbelieved the achievability due to paucity of resources especially in some countries.

However, for Nigeria, he said a scale of time has been slated by federal government during the World AIDS day of last year, adding that with the Global Fund resources, there is hope of treating more people. "We are beginning to go beyond the 15,000 which we know before. We are now adding it to 12,000 from the Global Fund resources and an additional 50,000 people.

"We hope that at the end of this year, we should be treating clearly a 100,000 people. That is the beginning because GF promises to give more than that because with the fund, we should be adding more 40,000. So, at the end of the period, our total target should be 350,000 PLWHA benefiting directly from the programme", NACA Chairman said.

He said treatment of PLWHA on ART depends on the readiness and acceptability of the people. He assured that before the end of the year, every state in the federation will have a VCT center, while some will have more than one, for people to have quick access to the drugs.

Like many countries that has been involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS, Oshotimehin said VCT centers were actually linked to clinical centers, which was disincentive to many people to go to those centers and have their test done. Some countries like Nigeria had a great denial of ARV's and so people didn't really want to test, he said.

With the advent new technologies and cheaper drugs and more awareness on HIV/AIDS, many people he said are coming to test for their status. Apart from the Federal Government giving more money to purchase enough ARV drugs, he said the Committee has established in every local government area of Cross-River State a VCT center which would be launched this month, while accelerating plans to establish same in all the 774 local areas in the country.