‘188,000 HIV positive people not yet on treatment in Benue’

At least 188,000 people living positively with HIV/AIDs in Benue State have not yet been placed on treatment.

State Coordinator of AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) in Benue, Dr. Uduak Effiong, made this known on Tuesday in Makurdi, while briefing newsmen on activities of the organisation and its programme to mark this year’s World AIDS Day.

Effiong said the figure extracted from the Nigeria HIV/

AIDS Indication and Impact Survey (NHAIIS) represented the projected number of people living with the virus in Benue and yet to be on treatment.

She said Benue’s HIV prevalence rate has dropped to 5.3 per cent from the 14.1 per cent it used to be, ranking second to Akwa-Ibom with prevalence rating of 5.5 per cent, the highest in the country.

The state’s AHF coordinator however noted that the worry which its organisation seeks to address in this year’s AIDS Day, remains the new infections among young people within the age bracket of 20 and 24, ‘‘who mostly engage in unsafe sex’’.

Also, the AHF-Nigeria Advocacy/Marketing Manager, Steve Aborisade, explained that the organisation in marking the Day, would engage in training a minimum of 50 adolescents among other young people for them to go back to their respective regions and pass down the training to their peers.

Aborishade noted that there was still a lot of work to be done to minimise challenges associated with HIV, as he called on the state government to keep its promise by dedicating more funds and implementing the law against stigmatisation/ discrimination of people living with the scourge in the state.

He thanked the state’s Ministry of Health as well as the state agency for the control of AIDS, for their tremendous support and called on the general public to make themselves available to benefit from free treatment in the organisation’s various health facilities in the state.