NACA Strengthens Capacity of influencers, Bloggers on HIV Stigmatisation

Towards reducing the menace of HIV/AIDs stigmatisation, the National Agency for the Control of Aids (NACA) has extended its hands of fellowship to influencers and Bloggers in Nigeria. At a two day Social Media Influencers and Journalists Workshop on HIV/AIDS, held for the bloggers and influencers, the Director General of NACA, Dr. Gambo Aliyu, said that the agency would continue to partner with all groups to drive home the message on the need to curb stigma and increase discussion around HIV.

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“We want you to pass the message across as we expected. We want people to know that HIV even though it doesn’t have cure, but it’s something that no longer kills and it’s one disease that you can manage and manage successfully. People have been living with this virus, now some for the last 30 years for more than 30 years, because HIV is more than 40 years. However, we want people to understand that fighting HIV begins with you. And we have had opportunities to engage different population groups, one population group that has been had to find a very difficult are adolescents and young persons. We believe social media influences have an age, and will help us connect to this important population, the way we want to be connected with. And that is why we decided to reach out to social media influencers, for us to have a get- together for them to understand the message. And to  it to differentiate between the key message which is the real news from what we call the fake news”, Dr. Aliyu said.

He also said that  people need to understand that if they have HIV today, and they walk into NACA facilities, and demand for that HIV service, they are doing, not only good to themselves, but they are doing good to all of everyone because they are helping to control HIV, without NACA putting in money.

“And this is what we want. We want people to begin to demand for HIV services, instead of us going after people looking for them to get tested and looking for those that are HIV positive to come for treatment. Why this is important, because as we approach 2030, and we identify close to 100% of those that have the virus among us, the few, 3-4% may not be able to get you then our conventional way where we go out community after community to get people know, we can only get that 3-4 percent if people develop the culture of demanding for the service. So we want people to demand for HIV service to demand to know about the HIV status. And if they are HIV positive, we want to see people demanding for treatment services. And that is why you will see flyers here, carry our call center number six to two, I expect at the end of this gathering. And in the next couple of weeks to see heavy traffic to our call center asking about HIV axon about HIV services, accent about stigma and discrimination accent about other things that people feel afraid to ask about HIV”, he said.

The Director General said that the vast population of people living with the virus are those that are around the age of 34 between the age of 34 to about 40 years. “And this is easy to explain. The last 20 years,  we have succeeded in reducing HIV from disease that kills to this that no longer kills. So all these people that were 20 years 15 years, in the last 10-15 years, that 30-35 years have lived with the virus and are now counting to the larger in the larger pool”, he noted.

He stressed that NACA will not cease to collaborate with everyone or groups that can aid the 2030 target date for the ending of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) in Nigeria. According to him, the agency has been vigorous in its mass media advocacy to spread awareness of the disease because the grassroots is a critical sector in the fight against the disease but events have shown how potent and effective the social media is.

“The mission of NACA brings me to the purpose of this Workshop. We all know that social media has become an influential platform for shaping public opinion; it can play a crucial role in reducing the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus and combating stigma and discrimination by being equipped with adequate knowledge and understanding to help reduce the spread of fake news, misinformation and/or misconception on HIV/AIDS and other related diseases. Our aim for organizing this Workshop is to solicit your support at achieving this Mission by being our advocates on social media and traditional media platforms in ending AIDS by the year 2030. We believe this is doable. Please join us in fighting AIDS to finish in Nigeria”.

The two-day workshop which had social media influencers and selected journalists in attendance exposed the participants to technical and social issues surrounding the HIV/AIDS with presentations and real-life testimonies.