17th August, 2018
Dr. Musa Abdullahi, the North-Central Zonal Coordinator, National Aids Indicator and Impact Survey (NAIIS), has said that a recent survey on HIV/AIDS recorded 99 percent response in Nasarawa State.
Abdullahi disclosed this on Friday shortly after handing over offices and medical facilities to the Nasarawa state Ministry of Health in Lafia.
He said the survey was a huge success, as 88 out of the 89 enumeration areas earmarked for the project in the state was covered by the team during the exercise held from July 16 to Aug. 16.
He, however, said that the exercise did not hold in one of the enumeration areas as a result of communal crisis, which caused the people to desert their villages.
“We also had some hard-to-reach communities with security challenges but with collaboration from the security agencies we were able to access the place and conduct the survey,” Abdullahi said.
He said it was too early to give out findings of the survey in terms of prevalence as the data was still being collated to be analyzed before being made public.
“For now, it would be early to begin to give you prevalence because the data are still coming in and analysis and data cleaning has to be done.
“What I can tell you is the response rate among the people of Nasarawa state is about 99 percent, which is very impressive,” Abdullahi said.
He lauded the state government’s support in terms of logistics and monitoring towards the success of the survey.
He said the donation of the furnished offices and equipment to Nasarawa State Government was aimed at strengthening facilities at the ministry of health for effective performance in the area of HIV/AIDS.
Mr. Ishaku Abari, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, who received the equipment and keys to the offices on behalf of the government promised to make good use of them.
Similarly, Dr. Ibrahim Adamu, Director of Public Health at the ministry, said the donation was timely because of projects being planned by the ministry required partnership from non-governmental organizations.