Inter Press Service - December 27, 2001
Remi Oyo

Eighteen centres have been designated to offer anti-retroviral drugs, imported from India, for some 3.47 million Nigerians living with AIDS.

Each centre will offer the drug, which boosts the patient's immunity system, to 25 persons, living with AIDS, every month.

Sani Gwarzo, who is Nigeria's National AIDS Control Coordinator, says demands for the treatment cannot be higher than it is now. "We are starting with 425 people living with HIV/AIDS," he says.

The figure will rise, gradually, until it reaches the 10,000 target. Gwarzo says the government also has designated two monitoring centres: one in Lagos, the country's commercial hub, and Abuja, the administrative capital of Nigeria.

AIDS activists say the drugs are not enough to supply the huge number of people living with AIDS.

One of the activists, Georgina Ahamefule told IPS: "It's certainly not enough. The number of sufferers is much higher than the 10,000 targeted. This treatment has to be expanded to make sure everyone has access to the drug."

Ahamefule also urged the government to come up with a more efficient system for distributing the drugs. She feels the government should allow support groups, which she claims are more efficient, to distribute the drugs to the needy.

This is because, claims another activist, Toyin Jegede, drugs distributed to some state-run hospitals for the treatment of tuberculosis, an opportunistic disease affecting people living with AIDS, were "mismanaged".

"This is the first time that Nigeria is taking concrete steps to manage the condition of people living with HIV and AIDS. This is just the beginning...at least the government is starting somewhere," she says.

"We can't expect that all the people living with AIDS will get the drug...it will be like building castles in the sky...at least they are starting somewhere. And, they will progress as time goes on," Jegede adds.

Her colleagues agree. "What the government is doing for people living with AIDS is just a drop in the ocean," says Akin Jumoh, Project Director of Development Communications, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) working with people living with AIDS.

"There are lots of people yearning for care and support and people to talk to. We have to look beyond the three percent of Nigerians living with HIV/AIDS," Jimoh said in an interview with IPS.

"Besides government, we need to look toward the private sector also; what are they doing about their workers, what are individuals doing? We need to look toward the involvement of everyone to provide care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS," he added.

Amina Ndalolo, Nigeria's state Minister for Health, told a recent news conference in Abuja that the centres for distributing the anti-retroviral drugs will be expanded from the current 18 to 100 points within one year of launching the initiative.

A comprehensive package for strengthening community-based institutions and establishing home-based care services to encourage support and reduce stigmisation is in the offing, the Minister said.

Ndalolo said the prevention of mother-to-child transmission project would start next month with the support of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), which has donated equipment to the initiative.

The project aims at an "effective intervention with proven efficacy in reducing the spread of HIV from HIV-positive mothers to children", according to the Minister.

Of concern to government, said the Minister, is the new prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS that now stands at 5.8 percent of Nigeria's population of about 120 million, a jump of 0.7 percent from the 1999 figure of 5.1 percent.

This means 3.47 million Nigerians are living with AIDS in 2001 from the 1999 total of 2.7 million people.

Not only are the rural populations showing HIV trends similar to the urban centres, but also 30 of the 85 sites surveyed returned results of HIV prevalence above the national average.

Majority of the 30 sites returned a rate above 10 percent, according to the Minister.
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