>> Abuja IDP camp residents submit to HIV testing

Text by Judd-Leonard Okafor

Ahealth outreach for internally displaced people camping in Abuja has tested residents of the camp for HIV in hopes of getting them to know their status.

Only one of the 82 internally displaced people on camp at Gongola Village, near Kuchingoro 3 along Airport/Jabi Road tested positive, according to the charity Save the Children Initiative (STCI), which organised the outreach.

The group included 63 adults-20 males and 43 females-and 19 children, 13 of them girls. SCTI’s coordinator in Abuja, Napoleon Agbaidu, said the lone positive case has “been linked to a closest facility of AHF [Aids Healthcare Foundation] for enrolment and treatment.”

Dr Kemaonu Anthony, anti-retroviral therapy clinician at AHF Nigeria told the camp residents voluntary testing and counselling to know their status was important to protect themselves and unborn children from contracting HIV.

Partners including a primary health care centre at Piwoyi, helped distribute family planning commodities and encourage pregnant women on the camp to attend antenatal clinic, where they can get treatment for ailments as malaria.

Rahila Shamaki, from the health centre, told camp residents to work toward ensuring they deliver their babies in clinics, rather than at home.

In addition to advocating for better health and nutrition status for residents of internally displaced persons camps, the outreach also conducted skills-acquisition classes where residents learn crafts as liquid soap making. Organisers said the skill could help residents meet household consumption needs or business purposes.