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1 Million HIV Positive Nigerians Will Die If US Stops Funding HIV/AIDs Programme – NACA Warns
July 10, 2017 – One Million HIV Positive Nigerians Will Die If America Stops Funding HIV/AIDs Programme – NACA Warns
Nigeria risks losing about one million of its citizens to HIV if its government does not take control of the full sponsorship of the treatment, an official has said.
The Director-General of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS, NACA, Sani Aliyu, said Nigeria must take full sponsorship of its HIV/AIDS programme or risk losing one million of its citizens currently living with the disease before 2022.
Mr. Aliyu, who stated this while fielding questions from State House correspondents in Abuja on Sunday, said taking ownership of the programme by Nigeria had become imperative in view of the dwindling resources coming from foreign donors for the programme.
According to him, at the moment, almost one million Nigerians are on HIV treatment with only about 60,000 of them being catered for by the federal government through “the “Taraba and Abia project’’.
He said about 700,000 HIV positive Nigerians were catered for by the U. S. government while remaining 240,000 people were being treated through funds donated by other global organizations.
He, therefore, warned that, “if our major donors decide to stop funding HIV/AIDs programme, almost a million Nigerians will come off the treatments.
“I can tell you as a physician that if those one million people are out of treatment statistically most of them will be dead in the next five years.
“This is a national security issue. HIV treatment is now affordable and we as a country need to start taking ownership of the programme.
“As I mentioned to the National Economic Council, there is no programme on earth that is open-ended. No donor agency will come to you and say ‘I’m going to look after you forever’, It will never happen.
“So, eventually sooner or later those funds will dwindle and they will go away. At the moment, we have an opportunity; we have an opportunity because in the last few weeks we have just crossed the tipping point for the epidemic.
“The tipping point for the epidemic is when we have more people going on treatment than we have new infections, which means that the epidemic is on real downward trend and therefore we need to maintain that momentum.’’
-Premium Times
Odogbolu Ineyo
July 10, 2017 at 4:43 AM
I wish d US can stop funding you people.
You sin will find you out.
Death is the reward of sin
uwem
July 10, 2017 at 2:03 PM
You sound so heartless, are you God to judge? is it all HIV victims that acquires it through sinful actions. Even if they acquire it through such, who are you to judge and pass death sentence on them. “who can throw the first stone” Have all not sin and come short of the glory of God? May God have mercy on you for this your senseless comment.
iron bar
July 10, 2017 at 4:53 AM
shebi same US promised them 121 m dollars to fight.who keeps stock of all the recieved so far
Mimia
July 10, 2017 at 4:57 AM
hum! God save but NiG. govt. should give hiv 1/2 positive mark in their private part so that people will recognice them when they refuse to use condom,they should go and text students,sex workers,okada men ,traders,civil servants infant make it compulsry to every citizen to be tested,even those arriving from abroad at airports,boarders,that my opinion.
Mon
July 10, 2017 at 5:33 AM
AND how many will die of hunger if Nigeria continue to exist by then?
Kinghoc
July 10, 2017 at 12:07 PM
So so bad , the figure is much..
Shirley
July 10, 2017 at 1:45 PM
I shall NOT die but live to declare the glory of God-Psalm 118 vs 17