TERRIFYING STATISTICS: 3.4 MillionNigerians Infected With HIV

Prof. John Idoko, the Managing Director of
the National Agency for Control of AIDS
(NACA), has announced the official statistics:
3.4 million Nigerians are living with HIV, 58.0
% among these are women.
Idoko, represented at the occasion by Dr
Morenike Ukpong, Coordinator, New HIV
Vaccine and Microbicide Advocacy Society,
gave the figure at the end of a two-day
Biomedical HIV Prevention Forum held on
Tuesday in Abuja.
He stated that an estimate of 388, 864 people
became newly-infected by HIV in 2011, and
that 217,148 people died from AIDS-related
causes in 2011.
He said that donor funding accounted for 75
per cent of the expenditure in 2011.
He added that there exists a prediction that
new cases may rise in Nigeria from rapid
population growth as a results the recent
increase in Mozambique and Tanzania.
"To keep pace with current spending, 30
billion U.S. dollars is required by 2031. Where
is that money going to come from?"
He said that nationwide prevalence stabilised
around four per cent but 12 + one state
carried higher burden and Nigeria was behind
target in several important indicators.
Mr Bright Ekweremadu, the Country Director,
Society for Family Health, an NGO, said that
establishing priority populations to be
targeted and identifying appropriate
intervention strategies were among the
primary mandate for HIV prevention funding.
According to him, intervention to promote
accelerated antirethroviral therapy (ART)
remained one of the most important scientific
advances in HIV program intervention.