The Director-General of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), Dr Gambo Aliyu has disclosed that single men and women in Nigeria were the highest numbers of persons infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in the country.
However, he noted that according to a recent survey carried out by the agency, single women were more infected with HIV than men in the country
Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Aliyu said while individuals who were never married contributed 64 per cent of the new infections in the country, new infections among female sex workers (FSW) and men who have sex with men (MSM) make up 91 per cent of all new infections among adults.
According to him, the younger generations who are never married do not use prevention and do not listen or want to have anything to do with HIV services.
“If we can reach them and connect them, we can come closer to reducing the pandemic. The younger people living with the virus need to be reached with services to curtail transmission among them and newborns.
“To reduce child infections due to mother-to-child transmission, we must go beyond the hospital and go to the communities to deliver services. We are working at hospitals and community levels. They now have more access. Expectant mothers who don’t go for antenatal service are now reached at the comfort of their homes,” he said.
Furthermore, Aliyu said NACA in collaboration with development partners is working tirelessly to develop strategies to stem the spread of HIV in the country.
Meanwhile, the report stated that the unmarried population, which is the youth, is the largest contributor to new infections, which is mostly between the ages of 17 to 34 for females, and 19 to 31 for men.
Also, the report stressed the need for special efforts to be made to reach the youth population in schools, workplaces, gathering spots, and especially through social media.
The report also noted that there were new infections through newborns due to low coverage of prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT), noting that efforts will be targeted at encouraging women to attend Antenatal Care (ANC), especially in high prevalence states.
Also, it outlined that increased efforts should be put in, especially for the highest risk FSW and MSM, which have shown that even though the population is small, noting that despite the high levels of reported condom use, prevalence remains high among sex workers and MSM.
“Although there is a law against MSM in Nigeria, the law does not deny them access to services or restrain us from delivering service to them. They can assess our HIV services across the country,” the NACA report noted.
To this end, the Mode of Transmission Study (MOT) focuses on identifying the sources of new HIV infections in the country and was first conducted in 2009 and was recently repeated, using an updated model known as the Incidence Pattern Model (IPM).
