From: Femi Oyelola, Kaduna
A group under the auspice of Civil Society for HIV/AIDS in Nigeria, (CISHAN), has said Kaduna State is not doing enough in HIV testing and if things continues like this by 2030 the state will be far behind other States in HIV prevalence rate.
The Executive Secretary of the group, Dr. Walter Ugwuocha, stated this during launching of the HIV Self-testing (HIVST) in the Northwest zone held in Kaduna yesterday.
According to him, the state might be left behind in achieving the United Nations goal of 95/95/95 2030 target if urgent steps are not taken to improve its awareness campaign on HIV.
Dr. Ugwuocha said the state needed to embark on massive sensitization on HIV self-testing.
He equally advised the State Government to procure the self-testing kits and make them available to the grassroots.
“Nigeria loses about 53,000 citizens to HIV/AIDS-related deaths annually, a study by the National Aids Impact Assessment Study has revealed.
“ From this study, it appeared that the HIV prevalence is reducing with about 1.9 million people currently living with the virus, 130,000 new HIV infection per annum while many are yet to know their status, hence, the launch of HIV self-testing campaign to realise the United Nations goal of 95/95/95 target by the year 2030”, he said.
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