'More than 3.2 million Nigerians still live with HIV' - Health Society says

dimeji akinloye

April 25, 2015 5:27 PM

More than 3.2 million Nigerians are still living with the Human Immune-deficiency Virus (HIV), the Society for Family Health says.

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More than 3.2 million Nigerians are still living with the Human Immune-deficiency Virus (HIV), the Society for Family Health (SFH) says.

This was disclosed in Abuja by the Society’s Managing Director, Bright Ekweremadu, at a forum to mark the end of Enhancing Nigeria’s Response (ENR) to HIV and AIDS programme.

“There have been tremendous improvements in addressing and halting the HIV and AIDS burden in Nigeria, there is still a lot to be done especially in regard to expanding access to services,” he said.

“ENR was funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) to promote sexual reproductive health and HIV reduction in Nigeria.

“Its goal was to also contribute to reducing the spread of HIV epidemic and mitigating the impact of AIDS in Nigeria,” he added.

He said the ENR programme is a six-year programme inaugurated in 2009 with a focus on eight high prevalence states.

In the same vein, the DFID representative, Dr Kemi Williams, calls for concerted effort to check the HIV scourge, noting that Nigeria has the second highest prevalent rate of HIV.

She said in the six-year span of the programme, it has distributed 1.2 billion male condoms and 4 million female condoms.

“These condoms with the associated health promotion and increased use prevented an estimated 109, 364 new HIV infections,” she said.

dimeji akinloye