HIV/AIDS: NACA SURE-P Targets 1 Million Persons for Testing, Counselling

As Nigeria kick starts the process of meeting its commitment to ending HIV/AIDS by 2030, the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) SURE-P has commenced the testing and counselling of about one million persons for HIV/AIDS and other related diseases.

 

Project Director of NACA SURE-P, Dr Sebastian Wakdok said the essence of the ongoing programme is to improve access and scale up testing, counselling and treatment of HIV/AIDS.

Speaking at outreach programme in Mpape, Abuja, he explained that NACA SURE-P yearly outreach is strategically aimed reaching out to a larger population of citizens around the the country.

Wakdok noted that the outreach was round the country, stating that, "we are in over 30 states, last week we started with about seven states and this week eleven states concurrently and next week we should be ending. It’s a multi disease outreach not only for HIV AIDS but also to test them for diabetes, hypertension and other diseases.

"The vision as we know, much as possible now there is a vision called the 9090 strategy whereby you test as much as 90 percent of the population and out of those 90 percent of the population those who are positive 90 percent of them you link them to care and those 90 percent when you put them on treatment, 90 percent  of them you expect  viral suppression and we that you don’t expect to transmit the virus to people because we think prevention as much as is said is better than cure.

"Those who are positive we treat while those who are negative we continue to tell them to remain negative so this is one of the yearly outreaches that NACA adopts just as we did in 2014 and we are doing it in 2015 and we are flagging it off here in Mpape Abuja."

He further stated that "those who are positive we can link to care and those who are negative we continue to be negative and those who have either high blood pressure, high sugar, malaria, hepatitis we link them to the appropriate care. For children under five and pregnant women we give them mosquito nets and de-worm the children also.

"Averagely we are doing two local governments in each of the states including the FCT so at least more than one site and each of that sites we are expecting atleast to test between 7,000 and 10,000 to know their status.

"That means an average of 20,000 in two local governments in the states for the 30 states. And we are doing this not only under the HIV AIDS programme in NACA, that is gotten funded fromthe proceeds that we got from SureP   but also the millennium development goal is funding some of the components of the project so we are hoping that at the end of the day when we pull together we should be able to test at least a million Nigerians within the phase of this programme."

Regarding cost, the Project Director contended that "it is actually cost intensive in the sense that it involves various components. We collaborate with partners and the vendors who do the actual testing, we have to buy the test kits and the test kits includes the first line, second line and third line test kits that determine ... after that we also have condoms because we are preaching prevention so we have to buy condoms, we have to buy test kits, the line sets other than that we have to pay the vendors who will run these tests for the whole week.

"Mobilisation also is getting through the community chiefs, town criers putting jingles on radios, print media and television for people to come out because you need to generate demand. Also the data capturing tools where you link those who are positive to care, the drugs itself for multi diseases."

Speaking against the backdrop of treatment, Wakdok stressed that the outreach has a treatment component to addresses the challenges of those screened positive.

He maintained that "right away from here from the client intake place, after our people have counselled them, tested them, for those who are positive from here we link them to our Global Fund sites that are in Abuja. We have several global fund sites where there are adequate drugs, treatments and laboratory investigation that will be carried on for them before they start treatment. So from here we link them straight together with the vendors to those designated facilities where they continue to access care."

Also speaking,  a beneficiary, Mallam Ahmed Lawal  of Gwari village, Mpape said the outreach programme was a welcome development given that it will afford residents the opportunity to get tested without cost.

While commending government efforts, Lawal observed that the need to get screen for HIV virus is very crucial to the task of fighting the pandemic.

He urged members of his community to embrace the NACA SURE-P outreach programme in order to be sure of their HIV status.