The Director-General of the Taraba AIDS Control Agency (TACA), Abba Sale Ibrahim, says a recently released statistics has shown that the state currently ranks second in the prevalence of HIV/AIDS infection in the country.
Speaking at a joint press conference in Jalingo, marking the World AIDS Day, he said the agency focused attention on the urban areas for free HIV and AIDS testing and counselling.
He said it was imperative to reach out to the remote areas where the level of awareness was very low and most people had no access to medical centers for test.
Focus its attention in rural areas with a view to render its services to rural communities.
“The aim is to ensure that we do not only sensitize the people on preventive measures but we also provide free counselling and testing so that they will know their status and take the appropriate measures”, Ibrahim said.
Nigeria has the second largest HIV epidemic in the world.1 Although HIV prevalence among adults is much less (2.8 percent) than other sub-Saharan African countries such as South Africa (18.8 percent) and Zambia (11.5 percent), the size of Nigeria’s population means 3.1 million people were living with HIV in 2017.
It is estimated that around two-thirds of new HIV infections in West and Central Africa in 2017 occurred in Nigeria. Together with South Africa and Uganda, the country accounts for around half of all new HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa every year. This is despite achieving a 5 percent reduction in new infections between 2010 and 2017.
Unprotected heterosexual sex accounts for 80percent of new HIV infections in Nigeria, with the majority of remaining HIV infections occurring in key affected populations such as sex workers.
Jonathan Aderoju
