Nigerian Government’s agency monitoring the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, National Agency for the Control of AIDS, has disclosed that the police and the armed forces are among six groups with the highest risk of AIDS
The NACA Director-General, Dr. Sani Aliyu,disclosed this while delivering a lecture at the Ministry of Defence Health Implementation Programme in Abuja.
According to Aliyu, statistics also showed apart from the soldiers and policemen, other groups with high risks in the country were female sex workers, homosexuals, transport workers and drug addicts.
The NACA DG said, “Sub-Saharan Africa is the most severely affected with the HIV. Nearly one in every 25 adults lives with the virus.
“Also, Nigeria has the second largest HIV epidemic in the world. The factors include: inadequate knowledge of HIV transmission and prevention, low risk perception, low uptake of HIV testing services, multiple concurrent partnerships, ineffective and inefficient services for sexually transmitted infections.
“The six target groups mostly at risk of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria are female sex workers, men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs, transport workers, men of the armed forces and the police.
“The Federal Government’s fast track plan for HIV treatment was launched in 2016 and its aims is to place 500,000 more people on treatment within 18 months, test 3,000,000 more pregnant women for HIV and place 75,000 pregnant women with HIV on treatment for life, among others.”
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