Abbas Yushau Yusuf
The Federal Government has said that it is confident of eradicating HIV/AIDS in the country even before the 2030 target set aside by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The Director-General of National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), Dr Gambo Aliyu gave the confirmation in Kano during while Monitoring the Ongoing Integrated biological behavioural surveillance survey (IBBSS) in the testing survey being carried out by the agency in the state.
According to him, “We are confident that with the measures being put in place, Nigeria could eradicate the disease completely through massive testing of the people.
“This time around, we have restricted our testing survey to some key affected population of female sex workers, injection/drug users, gay and transgender.
“We did so because in the last survey we did in 2018, we found that the infection rate of the disease has reduced among the general populace, but has significantly increased among these affected population,” he said.
The NACA DG also expressed satisfaction with the level of compliance of the population undergoing the test survey, and expressed optimism that the maximum support, Nigeria has the potential of eradicating the disease even in one year.
Dr Aliyu then called on Nigerians to imbibe the habit of going for voluntary testing, stressing that only that way the diseases could be defeated.
The survey according to him will last till the first week of December when the expect its outcome will shape the agency’s policy in fighting the disease in the country.
During the visit, the DG also attended and participated in the closing ceremony of Mentorship and Leadership Workshop organised to train medical doctors in the state.
The DG said Nigeria has over 1.8 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the country.
