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UNAIDS hails Nigeria's new HIV/AIDS initiative

Xinhua, December 4, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) hailed Nigeria for launching a new plan that would speed up HIV treatment and prevention in the country.

The documents would help quickly put 500,000 more people living with HIV on treatment and get Nigeria back on track to achieve the 90-90-90 treatment target, Charles-Martin Jjuuko, Communications and Global Outreach Officer of UNAIDS Nigeria, said in a statement to Xinhua on Sunday.

Two documents were launched in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, to commemorate the 2016 World AIDS Day. They aim to boost national response to HIV/AIDS, improvement of related care and services, and halting its spread in Nigeria by 2030.

The documents are the National HIV Guidelines, Prevention, Treatment and Care 2016, and Fast tracking HIV and Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) Treatment in Nigeria.

The UNAIDS official added that the plan would also support the HIV testing of 3 million more pregnant women, and treat 75,000 newly diagnosed.

According to Jjuuko, UNAIDS welcomes the move to fast track treatment and the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

More than 3.5 million people are currently living with HIV in Nigeria, among whom 250,000 are new infections, with only 24 percent of the total figure of people with the disease having access to public health treatment.

Nigeria is yet to implement the Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), a new HIV prevention approach in which HIV-negative individuals use anti-HIV medications to reduce their risk of becoming infected. Endit