HIV/AIDS: NACA Seeks Stakeholders’ Support For Nigeria’s Agenda

National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), has called on stakeholders in the HIV and AIDS national response to strategise towards the success of Nigeria’s sustainability agenda as the country nears epidemic control.

The director-general of NACA, Dr Gambo Gumel Aliyu, stated this in Abuja at the agency’s meeting with development partners and other stakeholders involved in the fight to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030.

The stakeholders initiated the sustainability process to ensure Nigeria takes ownership and control of the HIV and AIDS national response when foreign funds cease to flow.

The DG emphasised the urgent need to identify sustainable structures that support health services across the federal and state institutions for services integration as key to sustaining HIV response in the country.

He urged the stakeholders to help accelerate the process to meet Nigeria’s timelines to end AIDS as a public health concern.

Gambo commended the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GF), the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and other stakeholders for their efforts over the success Nigeria has recorded in HIV national response to date.

He said the meeting opened the critical discussions around how the HIV programme could be sustained and integrated into normal health services when the disease would no longer be an epidemic but endemic as others.