KDSG, Committed to Elimination of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV/AIDS by 2020 – UNICEF
By Alex Uangbaoje, Kaduna
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), on Monday assured that the Kaduna State government is committed to ending the prevalence of all new cases of mothRr-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS by 2020.
Dorothy Mbori-Ngacha, UNICEF’s Chief of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria, gave the assurance immediately after she and her team met with the state’s Executive Council, chaired by Governor Nasir El-Rufai.
According to her, the state government has shown it’s readiness to achieving the target, considering the huge amount of resources released for HHI/AIDS intervention.
Mbori-Ngacha explained that to achieve the target, the state intend to reach 90 per cent coverage, where all pregnant women in the state have access to preventive services.
The HIV chief added that, she was in the state to brief the council on what UNICEF, in partnership with the state government was doing to address the scourge of HIV in the state.
“We want the council to know what has been achieved in terms of response, how the state is faring and where we want Kaduna state to be by 2018.
“On where Kaduna is, i want to say that the HIV prevalence trend is going down and will continued to go down.
“Although the ongoing HIV/AIDS Indicator Survey would give us the current prevalence rate, early indictors have shown that the prevalence trend is on the downward trend.
“There is also an upward trend in the coverage of essential services for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, treatment of children as well as adolescent and young persons services, “she said.
Mbori-Ngacha, however, raised an alarm over deaths among adolescence and young persons, which she said have continued to rise in the state, while that of children and adult was going down.
“We need to accelerate actions towards finding the adolescence, test them and put the positive ones on treatment and keep them on treatment.
“There is therefore, the need to engage with the communities, families, the media and other relevant stakeholders on demand creation for the adolescence, ” she added.
