The Federal Government says Nigeria has made huge progress in the HIV/AIDS response and is on the way to ending the disease by 2030.
Dr Tunji Alausa, the Minister of State for Health, disclosed this on Thursday during a media conference to mark 2023 World AIDS Day.
The theme of the 2023 commemoration is “Let Communities Lead.”
Alausa also revealed a few national policy documents on HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs). These documents aim to reinforce the current framework for action in order to control the impact of these diseases and lessen their spread.
The documents are the National Guidelines for Viral Hepatitis Treatment and Care 2023, Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) materials for Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) demand creation and scale-up 2023.
Others are Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for PMTCT scale-up, jingles in 10 languages for PMTCT scale-up (2023), and IEC materials for HIV self-testing scale-up (2022).
According to Alausa, laudable progress in the response to the disease has been made in the last two decades towards ending the epidemic by 2030.
He continued by saying that communities play a variety of roles in the HIV/AIDS response because of their advocacy and leadership, which keeps the response grounded and current while keeping people at the center and leaving no one behind.
Additionally, he said it is impossible to overstate the enormous efforts done by past administrations and other interested parties to contain the HIV epidemic by preventing new infections and enhancing lives.
