The National Agency for the Control of Aids says there’s the need for the media to continue to report issues surrounding HIV stigmatisation as it is still very high in Nigeria.
The agency made the point in Lafiya, Nasarawa state, north central Nigeria during a media tour of HIV facilities with health editors.
According to NACA, the purpose of the media tour was to enable the editors to have a first hand experience with HIV treatments in the country.
The Public Relations Officer of NACA, Mrs. Toyin Aderibigbe, who led the editors on the state your, said that the there is HIV fatigue in the media that needs to end.
” We are happy to be here, I am here with my colleagues. The purpose of the media tour is to let have a life experience with HIV treatment. They’ve done everything, they’ve reported everything but we still want other innovative ways of reporting HIV. We want an human angle to HIV reporting. Despite all the gains we have made in HIV response in the last few years, we still have a small bit of challenge in the area of stigma and discrimination. So, that’s why I want the media people to have a one on one with people living with HIV. We didn’t want to do it in Abuja. That’s why we came to Nasarawa because we know you have best practice. So that’s why we are here”. Mrs Aderibigbe said. She added that the tour would offer the media the opportunity to meet with patients and care givers and have the knowledge to report HIV with empathy.
While receiving the team in Lafiya, the Nasarawa state Coordinator of the state Agency for the control of Aids, Mrs Ruth Bello, emphasised that stigma and discrimination was still a problem in the state. She said that sensitisation was ongoing to end stigmatization in the state.
She also noted that the agency has held talks with traditional and religious leaders to end stigmatization.
“For us in Nasarawa state, we have a prevalence of about 2%. We are hoping to get to zero. We have a lot of media engagement here in the state. We have a lot of engagements with traditional and religious leaders. We have interacted with them and we have had a lot of discussions with them on how to mitigate that and a lot has been done already’. Mrs Bello said.
She stressed that a lot of work was ongoing to sensitize the people about stigma and discrimination.
” Even last week we talked to the public about the danger of stigmatization. Training and sensitization has been done. We have the the anti stigma law distributed so that people will know that if you have been stigmatized, we have a law backing you”. She said.
She noted said that over eighty thousand person living with HIV have so hard been identified and placed on treatment in Nasarawa state. She also pointed out that Media engagement, engagement with traditional and religious leaders brought about the large number of identified persons.
On the issue prosecution of stigma offenders, she said nobody has been prosecuted yet due to interventions.
“Most of the time, they try to resolve the issue by telling you that someone has intervened”.She added.
On arrival at one of the treatment centres, a Consultant Medical Microbiologist and the Anti Retroviral Therapy Coordinator, Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital, Lafiya, Dr. Esther Solomon Audu, who took the crew on a tour of how the centre works, said that the hospital is a comprehensive HIV facility. She said that the hospital serves as a hub for the care and treatment of HIV.
” Our centre is a comprehensive centre for for the care and treatment of HIV. And what I mean by is it means every activity, ranging from testing to treatment takes place in our facility. And currently we have an active number of patients. Over five thousand. As at May, over five thousand two hundred and something patients on treatment, active. And we serve as a hub. When I say huh, it means that we are a big centre that provides support and services to smaller centres including general hospitals, primary healthcare centres and private healthcare facilities. And because we are a comprehensive centre, we offer all the specialised care like pediatric ART and PMCTC and of course adult ART for adults that come to the facility”. Dr Audu informed.
Furthermore, she said that when persons come in voluntarily or through provider initiated testing at the various service provision points in the hospital, they are tested at the over ten testing points in the hospital, when they are found to be positive, we enroll them for care.
” We have over ten testing points in the hospital. At different wards, units and service delivery areas where people are tested and when they are found to be positive, then they are sent to the HIV treatment centre where we provide comprehensive counseling, ore and post test counseling and then we enroll them for care, where we register them and then the doctors see them make diagnosis of whatever is ailing them other than the HIV diagnosis, they may be coming with some problems, opportunistic infections, they are given appropriate diagnosis, given appropriate treatment, placed on Antiretroviral drugs and followed up. And the care is nothing simple as that because it’s not just about prescription, you need to counsel the patients appropriately. So we have all the range of services that we give the patients from the points they tested up to the point they are treated where they become virally suppressed and we continue to follow them up”.She said.
Dr Audu also said that the centre has had patients who come for test and “lost” along the line by not coming back for treatment. She noted that there was the need for more awareness to educate the people that HIV is not a dead sentence and encourage to embrace the test and treat policy of the government.
On her part, the Secretary of the Network of Persons Living with HIV in Nasarawa state, Mrs Ruth Yakubu, said that there are free HIV services available in the state. She said that through support groups under the network, the patients share experiences and encourage one another.
She added that being positive was not and has not been easy die to stigma.
” I have been infected with HIV for the past eighteen years and I want to tell people that HIV is not a dead sentence. It is like any other sickness. Counseling is very key in the area of HIV. If you give somebody proper counseling, he will be able to overcome stigma at that very point but if somebody is not properly counseled, that’s when we have self stigma and that’s what is killing our people”. Mrs. Yakubu said.
For the PRO NEPWHAN, Mr.Haruna Muhammed, he now counsels over seventy people after over coming stigma.
They believe advocacy has helped a great deal in the eradicating stigma in the state.
