Bauchi Govt Okays Compulsory Pre-marital HIV/AIDS, Genotype Tests
Two have been reported dead in multiple road crashes involving Bauchi State commissioner for local government and chieftaincy affairs, Nuhu Zaki.
The state commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Yusuf Abdullahi, confirmed the accident to reporters in Bauchi yesterday.
He said there were multiple fatal crashes yesterday at about 2.45 pm, involving a government vehicle and a commercial motorcycle. The government vehicle is a white Toyota Hilux with registration number BA18 A08 which collided with a commercial Bajaj Boxer motorcycle rode by one Muhammad Muawuya.
“The multiple crashes were caused by speed violations which resulted in the loss of control and subsequently, a collision between the vehicle and the motorcycle in Miya town on the Miya-Warji route, involving five male adults.
“The victims, who were in the entourage of the commissioner, Ministry for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Nuhu Zaki, were rushed to the Kafin Madaki General Hospital (by the commissioner) for treatment and confirmation.
“It was there in the hospital that a medical doctor confirmed two people dead. One other person sustained bruises and a fracture,” he said.
Yusuf said another person was also injured.
Bauchi State government has approved the full implementation of the law mandating intending couples in the state to undergo Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/ AIDS) and genotype tests before being joined in a marital relationship.
LEADERSHIP learnt that the law was enacted by the Bauchi State House of Assembly in 2017 but it had not received the backing of previous administrations in the state.
At an event organised to mark the formal dissemination of the law to Bauchi citizens, Governor Bala Abdulkadir Mohammed who was represented by the state commissioner for health, Dr Sabi’u Abdu, said the law seeks to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS among people of the state through the marriages religious clerics joined.
He said the law will trim the rate of discrimination shown to people with HIV/AIDS, adding that only healthy couples will be joined in marriages.
“Where one of the couples happen to be HIV positive, the planned marriage will not be allowed to go through to protect people’s health.
“If both of them are positive they can be joined together in a marital relationship,” the governor said.
Bala said that dissemination of the law was one of the strategies being put in place to sustain the success recorded in the crusade against HIV/AIDS and
Sickle Cell disease in the state
He said the health status of women and children had been receiving optimum attention as the state budgetary allocation for the health sector surpasses the Abuja Declaration of 15 per cent.
The executive chairman of Bauchi State Agency for the Control of AIDS, Tuberculosis, Leprosy and Malaria (BACATMA) Dr Sani Muhammad Dambam said over three hundred thousand sickle cell disease babies are born each year, with a significant percentage from Nigeria hence the need for the urgent implementation of the Law in Bauchi state.
He said Bauchi was the first state in the federation to enact the law in April 2017 during the previous administration enforced.
Dambam told the forum that Bauchi State HIV prevalence has drastically dropped from 6.8 in 2001 which is above the national average of 5.2, to 0.4 in 2019 which is much below the national average of 1.5.
He said the agency would ensure the domestication of the law in collaboration with the Ministry of Justice through advocacy and campaign and would also intensify it across the 20 local government areas of the state. but was not