Agency decries poor funding of HIV/AIDS programmes

The National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) has decried the poor funding of HIV/AIDS response programmes by some state governments.

Dr Sani Aliyu, the Director-General of the agency, spoke in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abuja.

Aliyu said that there were about 10 states that did not allocate funds for the HIV response programme in their 2016 budgets.

The director-general, who refused to mention the states, however, described it as “a sad development”.

According to him, the condition is so bad in a particular state that in the last 10 years, no money has been released for HIV response programme.

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He also decried the development that the entire HIV cohort in some states was being treated by the international funding outside what the Federal Government was doing.

“This cannot be a sustainable solution, because no programme on earth is open-ended, eventually those donors will develop fatigue,’’ Aliyu said.

He said HIV epidemic could be controlled by increase investment, adding that NACA was increasing advocacy to the state governors on the need to investment more in HIV/AIDS response initiatives.

The director-general said that the agency was increasing the capacity of state agencies for the control of AIDS to enable them to negotiate effectively with the state governments on budget planning.

He said that more than 70 per cent of the entire HIV/AIDS national response was driven by the international agencies.

“Nigeria has little above three million people living with HIV/AIDS with one million people on treatment.

“Out of the one million people on treatment, only 60,000 people living with HIV/AIDS are supported by the Federal Government.

“In 2016, almost 99 per cent of the entire commodities were brought in by the international donor agencies, government had contributed just one per cent.

“We cannot continue to have this huge dependency for a health problem that is affecting Nigerians,’’ he said.