Leadership (Abuja)
Winifred Ogbebo
18 November 2008
Abuja — The United Kingdom is channeling 100 million pounds into fighting HIV/ AIDS in Nigeria.
The British Minister for International Development, Ivan Lewis, announced this yesterday at a press conference in the company of the supervising Minister of National Population Commission, Elder Godsday Orubebe and the Director- General, National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), Prof Babatunde Osotimehin at the NACA Secretariat, Abuja.
The Department for International Development (DFID) would work with NACA as part of the special relationship between the two organisations in Nigeria.
Lewis said, 'The fall in HIV prevalence in Nigeria in recent years is great news but the country still faces huge challenges in fighting the epidemic.
"The country has the second largest number of people in the world living with HIV and so we must continue to take action to stop its spread.
That is why the British Government is investing 100 million pounds to support Nigeria as it increases its drive to prevent people getting infected"
The grant, which is a new six- year 'Enhancing Nigeria's Response to HIV and AIDS'(ENR) programme, said the minister would reach out to improve access to prevention, treatment, care and support services to those most vulnerable to HIV infection.
He also maintained that the ENR programme would reach 27 million people with HIV and safer sex messages, and would use 1.2 billion condoms to reduce the number of new infections by 50,000 every year.
Lewis also disclosed that the programme aims to, among others, strengthen government systems, including health systems for treatment, at national level up to eight states.
"Through this new programme, DFID aims to contribute to Nigeria's achievement of Millenium Development Goal 6 which is to reduce the spread of HIV and mitigate the impact of AIDS on the lives of the most vulnerable groups" Lewis said
Responding, Prof Osotimehin said that despite the challenge of co-ordinating multiple partners and proliferation of projects, the agency had recorded some achievements in the areas of creating awareness about HIV/AIDS, drive some of the issues regarding prevention, abstinence, condom use, and faithfulness which he said, are indices of progress.
The NACA boss also disclosed that the agency is currently treating over 250,000 people living with HIV in the country.
Similarly, Elder Orubebe assured that the commission would ensure that the money from the British Government would be judiciously used.
"We'll work with NACA to ensure that the money is effectively used," he said.
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