By Kemi Yesufu
President Muhammadu Buhari has launched the Nigeria HIV/AIDS Indicator and Impact Survey (NAIIS).
The survey would be conducted by experts from the University of Maryland, Baltimore, in the United States of America, in at least 170, 000 households in Nigeria and would be supervised by the Federal Ministry of Health and National Agency for the Control of Aids (NACA).
The Sun reports Buhari, launching the project in the Aso Rock Presidential Villa on Thursday and disclosing that some foreign donor partners had withdrawn their financial and logistics support due to absence of reliable statistical document as regards the status and spread of the virus in Nigeria.
The president therefore called on government and all other stakeholders to support the survey so that it could produce accurate or near accurate data of HIV/AIDS infection and treatment in Nigeria.
Also at the launch, minister of State for Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, said the success of the project would wipe off the shame of not having precise record of people living with the virus in Nigeria.
“It will also account for resources committed thus far in the fight, and perhaps, offer improved approach to achieve better result,” he said.
He said: “The number of persons on life saving medications has increased from about 100,000 to just over a million and the number of hospitals providing HIV/AIDS treatment sites have increased more than 10-fold, yet the epidemic burden has remained the same. We are making progress but it’s painful and slow because we are not sure where we should be looking.
“As more resources are put into the programme, the cost of finding a person living with HIV has also increased. Yesterday I had a meeting with a team from an implementing partner struggling to reach their treatment targets despite testing about 1.3 million Nigerians within a very short time frame.
“Perhaps, this is the more reason why we need to have more precise estimates not only to determine the epidemic burden but measure the impact of our current interventions in order to plan more effectively, especially in this era of huge budget cuts and uncertain donor resources. This why the Nigeria HIV/AIDS Indicator and Impact Survey ‘NAIIS’ becomes essential”.
US Ambassador to Nigeria, Stuart Symington, disclosed in his speech that that the United States Government has committed 110 million dollars to the project, making the project, the largest HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis response survey in the world.
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