The Acting Executive Secretary of the Kogi State Agency for the Control of Aids (KOSACA), Ibrahim Anate, said no fewer than 50,000 people are currently living with HIV/AIDs in the state.
Anate disclosed this in an interactive session with newsmen during a road walk to commemorate of the 2024 World AIDS Day in Lokoja, the state capital, on Monday.
The walk was organised by the Centre for Integrated Health Programmes, in collaboration with KOSACA.
Anate said, “About 50,000 people are living with HIV presently out of which 36,066 are presently on treatment in Kogi State.
“We are seriously fighting the scourge and we are giving the awareness to all the community and the hard-to-reach areas of the awareness of HIV in Kogi State.”
He further stated that the state government, under Alhaji Usman Ododo, is trying hard to see that people who are living with HIV AIDs are on treatment and pregnant women who are HIV positive deliver negative babies.
“The current administration is also striving to ensure that people who are positive in Kogi State will turn to negative. The government is seriously working hard by providing support to the Ministry of Health, and KOSACA to see that we take the campaign to the very hard-to-reach community and the community at large in Kogi State,” he asserted.
Anate also explained that with the current security challenges in some parts of the state, some HIV patients find it difficult to access treatment.
The KOSACA secretary, however, appealed to Ododo to sign the Anti Stigma HIV Law, which was recently passed by the state House of Assembly.
“When the governor ascents to this law, people that are HIV positive can have the confidence to come out and declare their status. Many can’t do this because of the stigmatization in the society”, he explained.
Kogi State Technical Lead, Centre for Integrated Health Programmes (CIHP), Inyama Lawrencia, who also spoke in the event, lamented the transmission of HIV AIDs from mother to child in the state.
“We have been advocating for every mother to go for anti-natal services so that they can know their HIV status. With the record on the ground about mother-to-child HIV transmission, CIHP has been working in the communities to sensitise women to ensure that they come out to the masses to know their HIV status.
“One of the challenges is that due to the economic situation of the country, Some Women who are supposed to go out to know their status don’t even go because of financial constraints”, he asserted.