Recently, a high level stakeholders’ forum on making HIV Counseling and Testing (HCT) accessible to all Nigerians, held in Abuja.
In the course of the event which was essentially to chart a way forward in HIV counseling and testing (HCT) efforts in Nigeria, it was gathered that only a paltry 1.0 per cent or 140,000 Nigerians are aware of their HIV status.
Others are unaware either because they lack appropriate information, or have no access to HCT services. Yet knowledge of one’s HIV status is more of a right than a privilege. Sola Ogundipe spoke to Director-General of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin on the fortunes of HCT services in the country.
What is HCT all about?
HIV Counseling and Testing (HCT) is a crucial strategy in preventing spread of HIV & AIDS. It is the entry point to prevention, treatment, care and support services including the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV.
Persons who test negative are counseled to remain negative while those who test positive can be helped in planning for the future, living positively and accessing care and treatment. Currently, only 11 per cent of those require HCT services have access.
There are gaps in terms of service provision points available, geographical availability of services, human requirements to effectively deliver and other logistics requirements.
How many Nigerians require HCT services?
At the onset of this administration, the Vice President asked us how many Nigerians needed to be tested if universal access to treatment is to be attained. It was a fundamental question knowing the role of testing in HIV management for prevention as well as treatment support and care.
We did our home work and discovered that we needed to provide treatment to about 69 million Nigerians, including youths and adults who we believe are in the vulnerable reproductive age belt. If we could do that, we would have hit what is close to universal access. Of course that is an aspiration that necessitates us to do our homework very well.
What’s the overall objective?
The goal is to ensure that all eligible Nigerians can access HCT services especially in the communities. The commitment is to reduce prevalence in the 15-49 year age group and the number of new infections. More Nigerians need to know their HIV status.
How is this to be achieved?
We are expecting a plan of action with the commitment of all is expected at the end. The Federal and state governments allocate resources to HIV. Partners such as the Global Fund, PEPFAR, DFID, World Bank provide resources; then there are the CSOs and corporate organizations.
The essence of what the Vice President was saying was that we should bring all these people together and chart a way forward. The high level stakeholders’ forum is to achieve that plan of action and the commitment of partners and would be benchmarked and reviewed every six months.
What’s the current state of the national response?
We are dealing with a response that is evolving. Today all the 36 states have a response and we need to give them assistance so that they go down to the LGAs. Some of them are already active; in fact more than half of them have LACAs. We must begin to push programmes because we believe this is the gateway to everything.
Has the national response benefited from the debt relief?
Nigeria is using part of the debt relief gain. It is from there that the FMOH gets money to buy some of the commodities. We have scaled up from 10,000 adults and 5,000 children. We have passed the 250,000 mark and have reached about 250,000 adults and 30,000 children. It is not like 250,000 currently on treatment, but those that have been reached cumulatively because along the line, some of them drop off.
What’s NACA’s greatest challenge to date?
The greatest challenge we face now is in resources in terms of money and manpower. There are still states in the country without doctors and nurses. If we start from that premise it means that counseling treatment programmes in the localities of those hospitals cannot work so building the capacity of States to do what they have to do must be a major priority.
I also believe that resources in terms of money that will give us what we need to implement hose will also be an issue. We must work very hard at sustainability. We as a country must have plan B that would ensure we continue to provide services for our people. That is something we have to work on. We need some form of integration.