About 1.9 million people living with HIV in Nigeria have access to free treatments to save their lives and also enable them live a healthy and productive lives.
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Country Director for Nigeria of (USCDC), Dr. Mary Boyd, stated this at the opening of a 2-day CDC Biannual Program Performance Review Meeting and Symposium in Abuja with the theme: “Working Together to Bring Nigeria Closer to HIV Epidemic Control.”
US Center for Disease Control and its partners have been working with Nigeria’s health sectors to strengthen technical capacities that enables Nigeria to mitigate disaster.
Under the programme, over 1.9million Nigerians living with HIV in 21 States in Nigeria, and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, are currently receiving treatment.
The Biannual Program Performance Review Meeting/2022 End of Project Cycle Symposium, is an opportunity to review the CDC/PEPFAR-supported HIV program implementation over the last five years and discuss strategies for effective implementation in the next program cycle.
Dr. Boyd, also said that the US government took pleasure in working and supporting governments.
“Today 1.9 million people living with HIV have access to free treatments, and its treatment that is going to save their lives and allow them to live healthy, productive lives. We as the US government have been so proud to be part of the success that Nigeria has had. I want to just appreciate you all the champions, superheroes and our implementing partners.
According to US Ambassador to Nigeria, U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, Ambassador Mary Leonard said; “It’s going to take hard work, it’s going to take innovation, and the US government is here to support you all partners for the implementation network. We are so proud of the legacy that you are building in the affected sustainable HIV response Nigeria.”
Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, who was represented by the National Coordinator, National AIDS and STDs Control Programme, Dr. Akudo Ikpeazu, while commending the USCDC for the milestone achieved in tackling HIV in Nigeria, also said that Nigeria has enjoyed the goodwill and generosity of the United States government through PEPFAR.
Life Saving
He said Nigeria has recorded remarkable progress with reduction of the burden of HIV and contributing remarkably to the 1.9 million Nigerians who are life saving antiretroviral treatment.
“These are the key elements of our response to name a few, since 2018 which has made us move from a data poor to a data rich country as far as HIV is concerned.”
”Nigeria has recommitted to work with its partners to drive actions towards achievement of the 2025 global HIV targets and to keep Nigeria on track to ending AIDS by 2030. I take this opportunity to also recognise the partnerships with CDC through which led us to pandemic preparedness and emergency response system and structures have been strengthened in building on the rapid and general support to emergency response to COVID-19.”
“I encourage the use of HIV response platforms and investments for continued strengthening of health systems and pandemic preparedness. As you know, in 2020, the government and its major treatment partners PEPFAR and the US government and the Global Fund embarked on a joint alignment to resources in support of the National HIV programme. We have seen the gains of this new implementation architecture and look towards the second phase which has been christened alignment 2.0 as a means to strengthen coordination, leadership and governance of the response especially at sub national level, addressing commodity security, laboratory systems, data quality and availability and overall programming of some sorts in the spirit of strengthening the governance and leadership mechanisms of a response,” he stated.
Also speaking, the Director General of National Agency for the Control of AIDS, who was representative by Dr. Alex Ogundipe noted that Nigeria has come to a stable phase of the epidemic.
“Down the line after all this decades, we have come to point that we know so much about epidemic, we have come to stable face of the epidemic. All that we’re asking as Nigeria, the Nigerian government, in terms of the way we think about resources is that it is time to normalise this. “
”It is time to go back to the strategic ways of doing things and fill in the capacity gaps and system deficiencies. Let’s build it so that we can return what needs to be returned back to the society and let it grow efficiently and effectively. This for us is how we define what we mean by sustainability. There is need to realign our strategies, put in more equitable and resilient projects to have sustained response,”he stated.
At the meeting, awards were given to partners in the two categories of the CDC implementing partners for Public Health Excellence award, these went to:
APIN – AIDS Prevention Initiative in Nigeria.
CIHP – Centre for Integrated Health Programs
CCFN – Catholic Caritas Foundation of Nigeria
IHVN- Institute of Human Virology Nigeria.
While the second category is for special service award. This went to – AIDS Prevention Initiative in Nigeria (APIN), for the exceptional services and performance in special areas, such as contribution to government capacity building, ownership and sustainability.
Lateefah Ibrahim
