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| Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, Nigerian Health Minister |
•Jonathan, Kenyatta sign bilateral agreement on HIV, malaria
Do we still remember how many Nigerians are living with HIV/AIDS?
In its attempt to curtail the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country, the federal government, under the President’s Comprehensive Response Plan (PCRP), plans to avail 80 million Nigerians, aged 15 and above with their HIV status (Good one! but wait ohh what about the under 15 who may easily spread the dreaded disease due to ignorance????).
President Goodluck Jonathan made this known Tuesday at the AIDS Watch
Africa Champions breakfast meeting held at the International Conference
Centre (ICC), Abuja.
After the breakfast meeting, the president also had a closed door
meeting with his Kenyan counterpart, Uhuru Kenyatta, after which they
signed a bilateral agreement covering areas of health, terrorism and
foreign relations.
According to the president, other aims of the PCRP are the enrolment of
an additional 600,000 eligible adults and children into Anti-Retroviral
Therapy (ART) and the provision of ART for 244,000 HIV-positive
pregnant women.
The plan is also intended to provide access to combination prevention
services for 500,000 Most-at-Risk-Populations (MARPS) and four million
young persons, as well as activation of 2,000 new Prevention of
Mother-To-Child Transmission (PMTCT) in addition to 2,000 ART service
delivery points across the country.
The president explained that the plan became possible after looking at
the previous performance of countries in matters relating to HIV/AIDS,
its shortcomings and what was needed to successfully execute the
programme.
“What is even more important is our political will to continue to make a
difference in the lives of persons living with HIV/AIDS and to prevent
the spread of the scourge,” the president noted, adding, “The response
to the HIV/AIDS scourge must be designed to enhance human dignity and to
protect its citizens’ inalienable rights under the rule of law.”
He observed that despite the proliferation of HIV in Nigeria,
significant achievements had been made in reducing the zero-prevalence
from 5.8 per cent in 2001 to 4.1 per cent in 2010, although there were
still gaps in overall access to HIV/AIDS services.
On the outcome of the meeting between Jonathan and Kenyatta, the
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs II, Nurudeen Mohammed, explained
that Nigeria and Kenya also agreed to cooperate in the global fight
against terrorism in order to ensure world peace and stability.
Reading a communique issued after the meeting, Mohammed said the two
leaders agreed to exchange information and encourage more direct contact
between the capital authorities of both countries aimed at combating
international terrorism and other transnational crimes such as human
trafficking and money laundering.
Also, the African Union (AU) Summit on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and
Malaria, known as Abuja+12, endorsed the use of DDT
(dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane), an insecticide banned worldwide for
several years, as one of the steps to bring malaria under control on the
African continent. Is this a sustainable development???
Nigeria's Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, informed the
gathering that the World Health Organisation (WHO) had approved the use
of DDT for indoor purposes in areas where mosquitoes are sensitive to
it, but not for agricultural use as it could harm the environment. (This is worrying)
He said South Africa, Namibia and Erithrea, among other countries, were already using it.
His South African counterpart blamed the West for being hypocritical,
saying when they had need to use something, the thing was deemed good
but when it came to Africa they painted it black. He said: “If we stop
using DDT, we are exposing our citizens to death.” How about clearing the habitations of the said mosquitoes by building proper drainages that allows for free flow of water rather than the stagnated water mosquito infested drainage and bushes around us and awareness on clean environment???
There is a high rate of resistance to most insecticides by mosquitoes
necessitating the call for the reintroduction of DDT. “For malaria,
Africa remains the continent most heavily affected, with severe effects
on maternal and child health," Dr. Nkosazana C. Dlamini Zuma,
Chairperson of the African Union Commission, said.
“Even though malaria is cheaply preventable and curable in Africa, it
continues to kill, on the average, a child every 30 seconds! And this
is totally unacceptable!
“One of the greatest challenges we need to address is the dependency of
many national responses to AIDS, TB and malaria on external financing
and foreign-produced medicines. In the case of HIV, for example, over
60% of continental investment is mobilised externally and over 80% of
treatment is imported.
“We therefore need to accelerate the implementation of the earlier
‘Abuja Commitments’, stepping up the mobilisation of domestic resources
and strategies for innovative financing to strengthen the health
systems,” he said.
The African leaders agreed to create greater access to health which
should include community access to nutrition, information and systems to
promote good health, in addition to comprehensive and affordable basic
health services.
They also noted that nutrition was of paramount importance because
malnutrition, as is the case with many other diseases, would impair the
immune system of the victim, thereby exacerbating the health condition.
They further stressed the importance of research towards eliminating
HIV/AIDS infections and sexually transmitted infections. Kudos to the FG of Nigeria
