ABUJA, Dec 1 (AFP) - President Olusegun Obasanjo said Wednesday that he is determined to personally lead the war against HIV/AIDS since 2.6 million Nigerians aged between 15 and 49 live with the HIV virus, on official figures.

Obasanjo said that the government will soon introduce a new national policy on HIV/AIDS control which will make it mandatory for all blood used for transfusion to be pre-screened, an official statement by the presidency said.

His administration, he said, will soon come up with a comprehensive health, education and public information programme to combat the scourge in Nigeria, a country of more than 120 million people.

The latest available figures from the specialist body of the United Nations, UNAIDS, put the number of people with AIDS or the HIV virus in Nigeria at 2.3 million. The country is fourth in the list on overall terms, after India, South Africa and Ethiopia.

Speaking at the commemoration of the World Aids Day by the cabinet, Obasanjo said that both public and private hospitals will have to carry out compulsory tests on blood to be used for transfusion, he said.

He also said that the government will check the activities of the several "unregulated" blood banks in the country because, according to him, much of the HIV/AIDS infections in the country originated from blood transfusion.

Briefing the cabinet earlier, Health Minister Tim Menakaya, said that current estimates put the number of Nigerians aged between 15 and 49 living with the HIV virus at 2.6 million.

The minister said that although the northwest region of the country was the least affected, no part of Nigeria is completely free of the virus, the statement said.

Menakaya said that available data show that the prevalence of the HIV virus in the general population of the country has increased significantly between 1993 and now and called for concerted national effort to reverse the trend.

HIV/AIDS infection rates are up to 21 percent in some regions of the country, according to a new report released Wednesday.

Though the general infection level in Nigeria is lower than in eastern and southern Africa, the most populous country on the African continent is facing a disaster of huge proportions, according to senior health officials here.

The report, officially unveiled by the health minister, reveals that HIV/AIDS infection has passed the critical five percent level at which point it begins to "generalize" from high-risk to general sections of the population, health experts said.

"The seemingly low rate of national increase is masking the explosive rate of increase in certain areas in the country. For example, in Benue State, the mean HIV prevalence increased from 2.3 percent in 1995 to 16.8 percent in 1999," the report said.

"The increasing HIV prevalence is a matter of great concern especially as having reached prevalence of over five percent, Nigeria has entered the stage where the epidemic is likely to increase at an exponential rate if adequate national response is not mounted," the report says.

HIV/AIDS prevalance in Nigeria stood at 1.8 percent in 1991, 3.8 percent in 1993, 4.5 percent in 1995 and now stands at 5.4 percent.

As part of enlightenment campaign to mark the World Aids Day, Lagos-based AIT private television late Tuesday showed footage of five Nigerian AIDS patients.

"AIDS is a national disaster," the federal health ministry permanent secretary, Tukur Mani, said on the television programme.

He said that government has set aside 30 million naira (300,000 dollars) for publicity on AIDS.

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