TERRIFYING STATISTICS: 3.4 Million Nigerians Infected With HIV

Prof. John Idoko, the Managing Director
of the National Agency for Control of
AIDS (NACA), has announced the official
statistics: 3.4 million Nigerians are
living with HIV, 58.0 % among these are
women.
Idoko, represented at the occasion by Dr
Morenike Ukpong, Coordinator, New HIV
Vaccine and Microbicide Advocacy
Society, gave the figure at the end of a
two-day Biomedical HIV Prevention
Forum held on Tuesday in Abuja.
He stated that an estimate of 388, 864
people became newly-infected by HIV in
2011, and that 217,148 people died from
AIDS-related causes in 2011.
He said that donor funding accounted for
75 per cent of the expenditure in 2011.
He added that there exists a prediction
that new cases may rise in Nigeria from
rapid population growth as a results the
recent increase in Mozambique and
Tanzania.
"To keep pace with current spending, 30
billion U.S. dollars is required by 2031.
Where is that money going to come
from?"
He said that nationwide prevalence
stabilised around four per cent but 12 +
one state carried higher burden and
Nigeria was behind target in several
important indicators.
Mr Bright Ekweremadu, the Country
Director, Society for Family Health, an
NGO, said that establishing priority
populations to be targeted and
identifying appropriate intervention
strategies were among the primary
mandate for HIV prevention funding.
According to him, intervention to
promote accelerated antirethroviral
therapy (ART) remained one of the most
important scientific advances in HIV
program intervention.