Mulombo: WHO HIV Programme Is Successful In Nigeria
According to Dr. Walter Kazadi Mulombo, the World Health Organization (WHO) Country Representative to Nigeria, the WHO HIV programme is one of the most successful programmes in Nigeria.
Dr. Mulombo said this at a press conference in Abuja to mark World Health Day 2023 and the commemoration and launch of the WHO@75 anniversary with the theme: Health for All and sub-theme: 75 years of improving public health.
Dr. Oluwafunke Ilesanmi, the head of the HIV, Tuberculosis, and Viral Hepatitis Unit at the World Health Organization Country Office in Nigeria, stated that over 90 percent of the people living with HIV have been discovered and over 98 percent are on treatment.
She said, “As of today, the country is already finalizing the 2022 data on HIV and I will tell you that over 90 percent of the people living with HIV have been discovered and over 98 percent are placed on treatment.
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“This has been made possible because the country adopted the WHO treat all policy, which means that everybody living with HIV is placed on treatment irrespective of their CD4 count. This has actually helped in their daily life adjustment and that is basically the quality of lives of the people living with HIV. Not only that HIV services are scaled up to many health facilities in this country both in the public and private sectors.
“Even one thing that the government has equally done with support from WHO and transformative partnership of the UN joint team, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the global fund is basically to also work in the communities. We took a step away from working only in health facilities because we realize that for HIV a lot of women don’t actually utilize the health facilities to deliver. We thought about it and we felt it was actually going into the communities.
“The government has engaged Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) as well as Faith homes to ensure that all of them are on board to ensure HIV treatment and that has actually helped in the success that we recorded.”
