Stakeholders in the health sector says Nigeria has the largest burden of gap in HIV treatment coverage amongst children under 14 years in the entire world.
They called for concerted effort to detect children that are not yet found at the moment.
The Project Director of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) FASTER Project, Dr. Emeka Anoje, made the disclosure during an online media press conference.
The program was organized by the Civil Society for HIV/AIDS in Nigeria( CISHAN) in collaboration with (The Faith-based Action for Scaling up Testing and Treatment for the Epidemic Response) (CRS FASTER) Project.
According to the Project Director, new approaches has to be put in place to detect at least half of the child living with HIV that have not yet access treatment.
” The WHO guidelines for testing says that children below 18 months should not be tested. We also decided at the national level that children below 2 years should not be tested as well”.
Speaking at the event, Anoje added that COVID-19 prevented a large number of people from accessing treatment, and called for more orientation on HIV self testing kits.
” With the self testing kits, you do not need a 3rd party to access treatment , with the aid of a test tube you can test yourself and come out with a good result “.
He explained that the body is intensifying effort by mobilizing community members on how to test themselves.
“Though the response has been very low, we are making considerable progress and will not relent in our efforts.
We have provided 100,000 test kits free of charge to pregnant women and adolescents, especially those who will not have been reached by the conventional means of testing.”
He further commended the Delta State Government who have committed the sum of 100 million to HIV response in the state.
“We have distributed about 100,000 HIV self-test kits to support self-testing across the country . 10,000 HIV self-test will also be distributed in Delta State.”
” The test kits that we have provided will be given out free of charge to everyone who needs it. We are giving the kits to people who cannot access the conventional means of treatment”.
In the same vein, the group is calling for free treatment across different states of the country.
“We have been to three zones in the country,and we will continue to work with the different states and federal government to achieve our objectives “.
He urged all Nigerians to engage in confirmatory test to determine their HIV status.
