Young people, newborns, top new HIV infections in Nigeria – NACA

A new study conducted by the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) has found that the largest number of new HIV infections in the adult population of the country is occurring among the never married females and males.

The study tagged Mode of Transmission Study (MOT) also revealed that the second-largest source of new infections is in newborns.

The Director General of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), Dr. Gambo Aliyu made the disclosure yesterday during the dissemination meeting of the report of the study in Abuja.

The study focuses on identifying the sources of new HIV infections in the country was first conducted in 2009, and was recently repeated using an updated model known as the Incidence Pattern Model.

Dr. Aliyu, said the country could not control the HIV epidemic or achieve zero transmission without identifying mode of transmission.

Presenting the study, Mr. Tosin Adebayo, the Chief Programme Officer, Research, Monitoring, and Evaluation, NACA said it supports efforts to prevent new HIV infections by providing information about where new infections are occurring, by population group and location.

He said the second-largest source of new infections in newborns because the coverage of Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) services are low due to low rates of antenatal care attendance.

Efforts are needed to encourage women to attend antenatal care especially in high prevalence states, he said.

“Across states, the larger proportion of new infections generally occurs among never-married individuals or in sero-concordant negative couples,” he said.