Issues towards achieving Nigeria's AIDS treatment target in 2007

March 1, 2007 :: Florence Udoh,Lagos, Daily Champion,Lagos

In a bid to ensure that the treatment target for HIV/AIDS Persons as set by the government is achieved this year, stakeholders in the Nigeria's HIV/Aids community have highlighted ways through which the target can be realized towards ensuring that 250,000 Nigerians living with HIV/Aids are able to access quality treatment, care and support by the end of 2007.

At a stakeholders' forum organized by Journalists Against AIDS (JAAIDS) Nigeria in Lagos recently, the stakeholders - comprising clinicians, HIV/Aids treatment activists as well as the media, proffered ways through which some of the lingering problems in Nigeria's national Aids treatment programme could be addressed.

 
Expanding treatment access in rural areas by providing care at more health facilities through primary and secondary health centres like General Hospitals, and through NGOS; making treatment affordable by providing free access to monitoring tests and other necessary services; and publicising the availability of HIV testing and treatment sites, were some of the action steps identified as necessary in achieving the ambitious target set by the government about a year ago.

The stakeholders also say it is necessary to build the capacity of healthcare workers at the various health facility levels on effective ART administration and make the Federal Government's treatment programme truly comprehensive by including treatment literacy, lab monitoring, adherence counselling and other nutritional care and support in addition to the free drugs currently being given out on the programme.

Lead speakers at the forum include Ms. Rolake Odetoyinbo Nwagwu, Project Director, Positive Action for Treatment Access (PATA) and National Coordinator, Treatment Action Movement, (TAM) Nigeria, Bede Eziefule, Project Manager, Centre for the Right to Health (CRH), and Dr. Dan Onwujekwe, Senior Research Fellow, Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, (NIMR).

Presenting 'Missing the Target 3 - the latest report on treatment situations in six countries including Nigeria, published by the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC), Bede Eziefule said although Nigeria's goal was to place 250, 000 people on ART by June 2006, only a little more than one third of the target was achieved.

"As at September 2006 when the report was compiled, only about 85, 000 people were on treatment. Although the number of treatment centres has doubled over the past year, treatment uptake has lagged behind projections"

The insufficient attention to opening treatment centres outside major urban areas as well as the negative impact of HIV-related stigma and discrimination on those who might otherwise seek treatment and care, Ezeifule says, are among the obstacles limiting the treatment scale-up according to the research.

Citing Imo state, in South East Nigeria as an example, he said PLWH living in towns like Orlu and Okigwe like their counterparts in other rural areas, often have to travel the long distance to the Federal Medical Centre at the state capital in Owerri before they can access treatment. The attendant problem of traveling up and down, he said, especially with the bad conditions of some of the roads, often discourage many PLWH to travel for their treatments.

"Why is it that we have more treatment centres in the urban areas when our population census figures have always indicated that more people live in the rural areas? Why is it that Abuja has more than 12 treatment centres while some states have just only one?" he asked rhetorically.

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