Health
NACA Charges FG On HIV/AIDS Programme
The Director-General of
the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), Dr Sani Aliyu, has said that the Federal Government must take full sponsorship of its HIV/AIDS programme or risk losing one million of its citizens currently living with the disease before 2022.
Aliyu, who stated this while fielding questions from State House correspondents in Abuja on Sunday, said taking ownership of the programme by Nigeria had become imperative in view of the dwindling resources coming from foreign donors for the programme.
According to him, at the moment, almost one million Nigerians are on HIV treatment with only about 60,000 of them being catered for by the Federal Government through the “Taraba and Abia project’’.
He said about 700,000 HIV positive Nigerians were catered for by the U. S. government while remaining 240,000 people were being treated through funds donated by other global organizations.
He, therefore, warned that, “if our major donors decide to stop funding HIV/AIDs programme, almost a million Nigerians will come off the treatments.
“”I can tell you as a physician that if those one million people are out of treatment, statistically most of them will be dead in the next five years.
“”This is a national security issue. HIV treatment is now affordable and we as a country need to start taking ownership of the programme.
“As I mentioned to the National Economic Council, there is no programme on earth that is open-ended. No donor agency will come to you and say “I’m going to look after you forever’, It will never happen.
“So, eventually sooner or later those funds will dwindle and they will go away. At the moment we have an opportunity; we have an opportunity because in the last few weeks we have just crossed the tipping point for the epidemic.
“The tipping point for the epidemic is when we have more people going on treatment than we have new infections, which means that the epidemic is on real downward trend and therefore we need to maintain that momentum.’’
Aliyu expressed optimism that the country would be able to achieve the 90-90-90 per cent objective (90 per cent will have HIV; 90 per cent are on treatment and 90 per cent are biologically suppressed) by 2030 “if the momentum is maintained in the next few years.’’
He disclosed that state governments had already agreed to commit between 0.5 per cent to one per cent of their monthly allocation towards HIV/Aids programmes.
He said: “We are not asking for that money to come to the federal government. No, they keep their money but they commit to investing that money in HIV care in their states so that their health system can be strengthened; so that in the future they will be able to deliver their own HIV programme.
“By providing those funds we will be able to increase the number of people on treatment by 50 per cent.
“If we know that we have two million people on treatment by increasing 50 per cent we must have actually saturated the number of people on treatment.
“And with the HIV epidemic once you have more than 80 per cent of your people living with HIV on treatment and biologically suppressed, you don’t need to do anything, the epidemic will die out on its own because the infectivity is so low that the efficiency of transmission is interrupted.
“So, that was our first prayer to the governors and I made the point very clear that most states are already budgeting the one per cent towards HIV/AIDs but the problem is with the budget release.’’
It would be recalled that the federal government in 2010 signed an agreement with the U.S. government, stipulating that both the federal and the state governments would set aside one per cent of their allocation towards HIV programme in the country.
The Director General said the federal government was conscious of the agreement “but it was time the state governments implement it.
“HIV will not go away. You just don’t sit down and pretend it is not a problem simply because somebody is paying for treatment for your citizens. You have to sit up and do it yourself.
“I’m happy to say, the state governors agreed to that prayer and we will follow it up with them.’’
Aliyu also said state governments had agreed to remove all fees and charges for anti-natal care for pregnant women living with HIV/AIDs.
“Nigeria is right at the bottom of the list when it comes to pregnant women with HIV in terms of transmission.
“Thousands of babies are born in Nigeria every month with HIV. On average one in every three babies born in the world is a Nigerian child. We are covering only one out of every three pregnant women with HIV.
Two United States scientists who unraveled the human micro RNA have won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2024.
Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun won the coveted prize for their work on microRNA as their discoveries help explain how complex life emerged on earth and how the human body is made up of a wide variety of different tissues.
MicroRNAs influence how genes – the instructions for life – are controlled inside organisms, including humans.
Every cell in the human body contains the same raw genetic information, locked in our DNA.
However, despite starting with the identical genetic information, the cells of the human body are wildly different in form and function.
The electrical impulses of nerve cells are distinct from the rhythmic beating of heart cells. The metabolic powerhouse that is a liver cell is distinct to a kidney cell, which filters urea out of the blood.
The light-sensing abilities of cells in the retina are different in skillset to white blood cells that produce antibodies to fight infection.
So much variety can arise from the same starting material because of gene expression.
The US scientists were the first to discover microRNAs and how they exerted control on how genes are expressed differently in different tissues.
The medicine and physiology prize winners are selected by the Nobel Assembly of Sweden’s Karolinska Institute.
They said: “Their groundbreaking discovery revealed a completely new principle of gene regulation that turned out to be essential for multicellular organisms, including humans.
“It is now known that the human genome codes for over 1,000 microRNAs.”
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has begun acting to curb effects of antibiotic pollution.
The new guidance on wastewater and solid waste management for antibiotic manufacturing sheds light on this important but neglected challenge ahead of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) High-Level Meeting on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) taking place on 26 September 2024.
The emergence and spread of AMR caused by antibiotic pollution could undermine the effectiveness of antibiotics globally, including the medicines produced at the manufacturing sites responsible for the pollution.
Despite high antibiotic pollution levels being widely documented, the issue is largely unregulated and quality assurance criteria typically do not address environmental emissions. In addition, once distributed, there is a lack of information provided to consumers on how to dispose of antibiotics when they are not used, for example, when they expire or when a course is finished but there is still antibiotic left over.
“Pharmaceutical waste from antibiotic manufacturing can facilitate the emergence of new drug-resistant bacteria, which can spread globally and threaten our health. Controlling pollution from antibiotic production contributes to keeping these life-saving medicines effective for everyone,” said Dr Yukiko Nakatani, WHO Assistant Director-General for AMR ad interim.
Globally, there is a lack of accessible information on the environmental damage caused by manufacturing of medicines.
“The guidance provides an independent and impartial scientific basis for regulators, procurers, inspectors, and industry themselves to include robust antibiotic pollution control in their standards,” said Dr Maria Neira, Director, Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health, WHO. “Critically, the strong focus on transparency will equip buyers, investors and the general public to make decisions that account for manufacturers’ efforts to control antibiotic pollution.”
In a concerted effort to curb brain drain, the Kebbi State Government has harmonised medical doctors’ salaries to be at par with their colleagues in the federal government’s tertiary health facilities.
Kebbi State Commissioner for Health, Musa Inusa-Isma’il, disclosed this at the handing over of ambulances to the state-owned health facilities at the Ministry of Health in Birnin Kebbi yesterday.
Inusa Isma’il, according to a statement by Ahmed Idris, the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, said the essence of the harmonisation was to retain the existing medical doctors and attract more to the services of the state.
According to him, the doctors across the state had already started enjoying the new salaries from August 2024.
He said the release of the vehicles was in fulfilment of Governor Nasir Idris’ promise to uplift health care services in the state.
“His Excellency said I should inform you, the beneficiaries of this gesture, that the vehicle should be strictly used for the intended purpose. It should not be used for anything else.
“If there is no referral case, each of the vehicles must be parked at the hospital by 6 pm. The governor said you should warn your drivers against reckless driving as well as violating the instructions.
“We should also do everything possible to reciprocate the gesture by working according to the terms and conditions attached,” he advised.
The benefiting health facilities included Sir Yahaya Memorial Hospital, Birnin Kebbi; State Teaching Hospital, Kalgo; General Hospital, Argungu; General Hospital, Yauri; General Hospital, Zuru; and General Hospital, Bunza.
In his speech, the permanent secretary of the ministry, Dr Shehu Koko, recalled that the ambulances were handed over to the ministry last Friday by the governor for the onward handover to the benefiting hospitals.
He observed that the ambulances would go a long way in improving the referral system in the state, adding that delays in reaching the secondary and tertiary facilities would be eliminated.
The permanent secretary attributed the high rate of maternal mortality in the country to delays in getting to the health facilities for proper medical care.
“We believe with the provision of these ambulances, part of the gaps we have in our referral system will be addressed, whereby patients who require secondary healthcare could be easily transported to secondary and tertiary health centres, where they can get such help,” he said.
In a goodwill message, Commissioner for Information and Culture Alhaji Yakubu Ahmed expressed gratitude to the governor for the support he has given to the ministry to excel.
While advising the beneficiaries to use the vehicles judiciously, the commissioner advised that services and maintenance of the vehicles must be prompt to derive the maximum benefits from the vehicles.
The commissioner also highlighted some achievements recorded by the government in the last year, including beautification of the state capital, completion of a multimillion-naira ultramodern state secretariat, road construction, construction and renovation of classrooms and upgrading of some health facilities, among others.