HIV/AIDS: Benue, A’Ibom, Anambra record highest rates….. FG fails to fund control –CDC

The federal government was yesterday accused of failing to fulfill its part of HIV/AIDS counterpart funding. Country Director, Centre for Disease Control (CDC), Dr Okey Nwanyanwu, who said this in Abuja disclosed that the United States of America had fulfilled its part of a jointly signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to provide $250 million counter funding for the disease yearly.
He said Nigeria was yet to play its part. Nwanyanwu made the revelation at a one-day workshop organised by the Institute of Human Virology (IHVN) for Network of People with HIV/AIDS (NEPWHAN) to mark this year’s World AIDS Day. In an address, chief executive officer of the Institute of Human Virology, Nigeria, Patrick Dakum, stated that the institute was working towards ensuring no new born baby is infected with the virus.
According to him the best strategy is to get every pregnant woman tested, and be given Pre Exposure Prophylaxis if positive, to enable her have free HIV/AIDS children. The workshop allowed the people to rub minds with their mentors-mothers and fathers.
The participants left the venue with a clear message – HIV positive mothers should give six months exclusive breastfeeding to their babies before complementary feeding. Some of the participants at the event had said they were confused over various forms of medical advice they received from health workers on breastfeeding.
One of the participants who pleaded not to be named said some of the health workers who attended to them at various health facilities were not always specific on whether the HIV positive mothers should breastfeed their babies at all or give exclusive feeding.
A pediatrician, Mrs. Grace Adamu, advised the mothers that the World Health Organisation had directed that mothers on retroviral drugs could breastfeed their babies without the babies being infected with the virus.
“HIV positive mothers, according to our National Guideline on Infant Feeding says every woman that is pregnant and is delivered should breastfeed exclusively for six months after which they will now do complementary feeding. For those who are found to be HIV positive, they will be covered with the Ante- Retroviral Drugs (ARD), which the Federal Ministry of Health would provide.
“Right from the beginning when we were doing infant feeding options and counseling, there was never a time that breastfeeding was discouraged in total. All we were doing that time was that: ‘cancel them and tell them they have options which include option of breastfeeding exclusively or option of doing exclusive replacement feeding’.
But we later had a consensus and the new thing in the national guideline is that all women should breastfeed, while those positive with HIV will be covered with the ARV,” she added. She advised all pregnant women to ensure they go for ante-natal care as the best way to accessing a health care.
The theme for the IHVR- sponsored event was “Zero Tolerance to MTCH: Way Forward.”

Benue, A’Ibom, Anambra, FCT top HIV/AIDS prevalent areas

Benue, Akwa-Ibom, Anambra states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, top the table of states with high HIV/ AIDS prevalence rate. This was disclosed by the Director, Clinical Services Department, Institute of Human Virology of Nigeria (IHVN), Dr. Ernest Ekong, yesterday during a briefing to commemorate this year World AIDS Day and the launch of new antiretroviral medicine by MSD.
According to Dr. Ekong, globally, 31.4 million to 35.9 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2011. “An estimated 0.8% of adults aged 15-49 years worldwide are living with HIV. Sub-Saharan Africa remains most severely affected, with nearly 1 in every 20 adults (4.9%) living with HIV and accounting for 69% of the people living with HIV worldwide,” he said.
Some of the factors responsible for new infections, he said, include multiple concurrent sexual partnerships, intense transactional and intergenerational sex, ineffective and inefficient services for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), inadequate access to and poor quality of healthcare services, entrenched gender inequalities and inequities, chronic and debilitating poverty, stubborn persistence of HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination.
Also, he stated that across the country, urban prevalence is higher than rural in all six geo-political zones.
Speaking on the new HIV anti-retroviral drug, the Commercial Director, MSD West Africa, Mr. Kingsley Okeke, said ATRIPLA, a one-pill-aday treatment for HIV has been shown to be effective and has a well-established tolerability profile in patients.
“There are 3.4 million Nigerians living with HIV, 1.49 million requiring ARV therapy and only 29.8% of them are on treatment. There is still a huge gap towards providing access to comprehensive services.”

National mirror