Launching its 2025 World AIDS Day report, Overcoming Disruption, Transforming the AIDS Response, UNAIDS warned that global HIV response was facing worst setback in decades.

“Nigeria recorded a 55 per cent drop in condom distribution,” UNAIDS said.

UNAIDS reports widespread disruption to HIV prevention, testing and community-led programmes, adding that across 13 countries, the number of people newly initiated on treatment had fallen.

According to UNAIDS, 450,000 women in sub-Saharan Africa lose access to “mother mentors,” trusted community workers who link them to care.

The UN AIDS agency said abrupt funding cuts and a deteriorating human rights environment disrupt prevention and treatment services across dozens of countries.

“The funding crisis has exposed the fragility of the progress we fought so hard to achieve,” Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS, said in Geneva on Tuesday.

“Behind every data point in this report are people,” Byanyima said.

“Babies missed for HIV screening, young women cut off from prevention support, and communities suddenly left without services and care. We cannot abandon them,” she added.

UNAIDS said before the crisis, adolescent girls and young women were already severely affected as 570 new HIV infections occur every day among young women aged 15 to 24.

“This is our moment to choose,” Byanyima said.

“We can allow these shocks to undo decades of hard-won gains, or we can unite behind the shared vision of ending AIDS.

“Millions of lives depend on the choices we make today.”

The UN agency warned that dismantled prevention programmes left them even more vulnerable.

Community-led organisations, the backbone of HIV outreach, are also under pressure.

It said more than  60 per cent of women-led organisations said they had had to suspend essential services.

UNAIDS modelling now suggests that failure to restore prevention efforts could lead to an additional 3.3 million new HIV infections between 2025 and 2030.

The UN agency said international assistance had sharply declined, with OECD projections showing external health funding could fall by 30 to 40 per cent in 2025 compared with 2023.

“The impact has been immediate and severe, especially in low- and middle-income countries highly affected by HIV.”

UNAIDS urged world leaders to reaffirm global solidarity and multilateralism, including commitments made at the recent G20 Leaders Summit in South Africa.

The UN agency also urged world leaders to maintain and increase HIV funding, especially for countries most dependent on external assistance

It called for investment in innovation, including affordable long-acting prevention and upholding human rights and empower communities, which remain central to successful HIV responses.

Source: NAN

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This include for the first time, procurement of African-made treatment for Mozambique.

The development marks a milestone for a region that bears nearly 65 per cent of the global HIV burden and has long depended on imports of lifesaving anti-retroviral medicines and testing kits.

The Human Immunodeficiency Virus, HIV, weakens the body’s immune system, reducing its ability to fight infections and certain cancers.

Without timely intervention, it can progress to Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, AIDS, the most advanced stage of infection.

World Health Organisation, WHO, in a statement on Friday, said that a Kenya-based pharmaceutical company, Universal Corporation Ltd, became the first African manufacturer to receive WHO prequalification to produce HIV medicine.

The company received prequalification to produce tenofovir disoproxil fumarate, lamivudine and dolutegravir (TLD); a first-line anti-retroviral therapy for HIV.

Now, in a major step forward, the Global Fund; a worldwide partnership financing HIV, tuberculosis and malaria responses is procuring this locally produced HIV treatment for Mozambique, making it the first time African-manufactured TLD has been deployed through this channel.

“The procurement of the African-manufactured first-line HIV treatment by the Global Fund for Mozambique is a great milestone towards strengthening supply chain systems in Africa,” Dr Meg Doherty, Director of WHO’s Global HIV Programmes, said.

“This will contribute to better health outcomes for people living with HIV who need uninterrupted medicine supplies.”

WHO says the achievement is part of a broader push to bolster local production capacity and improve access to essential health technologies across Africa.

The UN agency has been partnering with countries, manufacturers and global health organisations including the Global Fund and Unitaid to expand quality-assured African manufacturing.

“Local production of quality-assured health products is an urgent priority,” said Rogerio Gaspar, WHO Director for Regulation and Prequalification.

“With every African manufacturer that meets WHO prequalification standards, we move closer to a more self-reliant, resilient and equitable health system.”

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In spite of the milestone, WHO cautioned that production alone was not enough.

To ensure long-term sustainability, the agency is calling for advanced market commitments, fair procurement policies and ongoing technical support.

WHO also pointed to diagnostics as a critical gap. With shifting donor funding, many countries are under pressure to maintain HIV testing programmes, which are the frontline of prevention and treatment.

In a related effort, Codix Bio, a Nigerian diagnostics company, recently received a sub-licence to manufacture rapid diagnostic tests for HIV.

Locally produced HIV rapid tests will help increase affordability, and address supply chain vulnerabilities and delays.

“Having locally produced HIV rapid tests will help increase affordability, and more broadly address supply chain vulnerabilities and delays in access to diagnostics,” said Doherty.

As part of its guidance, the UN health agency is also encouraging countries to adopt low-cost, WHO-prequalified rapid HIV tests, especially as the first test in national algorithms, which can significantly cut costs while maintaining service delivery.

While the latest update marks tangible progress, more action is needed.

“Locally manufactured TLD is a major step towards that goal,” WHO said, “but more action is needed.”

Source: NAN

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The WHO Regional Office for Europe in a press release ahead of December 1, which marked World AIDS Day, said the stigma still surrounding the virus that caused AIDS was to blame.

According to new data, since 2018 to 2021,  more people became infected with HIV in the European Region than had been diagnosed.

The WHO European Region included more than 50 countries, including Russia, Ukraine and Turkiye.

According to the report, the number of undiagnosed HIV cases in the European Economic Area, EEA, which includes Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway on top of the European Union member states is on the increase.

By comparison, some 12.5 per cent of HIV cases in the EEA were still not diagnosed, the report said.

WHO Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge said, “We should all be deeply concerned by the data on HIV testing, treatment and care. Continuing, the widespread stigma around HIV is deterring people from getting tested and is steering us dangerously off course from meeting our 2030 goal of ending AIDS.’’

The WHO also called for HIV services to be made more accessible.

“We must work together to make sure that no one feels afraid of getting tested, nor shame, despair or isolation about their status. Everyone everywhere should be able to get the services and respectful care they need,” Kulge said.

Andrea Ammon, director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, ECDC, highlighted the importance of HIV testing, saying those who are diagnosed late “have higher chances of severe illness and even death.”

She also stressed the dangers for public health, saying “untreated positive individuals can unknowingly pass on HIV to their sexual partners.”

In 2021, some 300 new HIV diagnoses were made daily across 46 of the 53 countries in Europe, including 45 each day in EEA countries, according to the WHO.

The international body said it amounted to 106,508 new diagnoses reported in Europe and 16,624 in the EU over the entire year.

Source: dpa/NAN

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In his goodwill message to the roundtable conference of the board of the “Global Stop TB Partnership,” President Buhari expressed concern that efforts at ending a preventable and curable disease like TB were now complicated because of COVID-19.

‘‘As I mentioned during the UN high level meeting in 2018, it is now even more urgent that the global community, especially the African region, acts in unison with rededicated efforts, using the latest available technology and tools to address the TB epidemic.

‘‘Nigeria still ranks amongst those countries bearing the brunt of an increasing burden of TB with a growing number of “missing” TB cases.

‘‘The reversal of Nigeria’s difficult health indices, remains a top priority of this administration, including the gap in TB case detection, fueled partly by the dearth of acceptable, accessible, affordable and patient centered basic health facilities,’’ the president told the roundtable session of Ministers of Health, during the 33rd board meeting of the Global Stop TB Partnership.

Apprising the meeting on efforts to reverse TB cases in the country, the Nigerian leader said his government had conceptualised and was already implementing the Primary Health Care (PHC) revitalisation programme, to empower more PHC centres to provide quality basic healthcare in the treatment of TB, HIV, malaria and other health challenges, delivered in a patient-centered way.

President Buhari added that the Nigerian government was also implementing the Basic Health Care Provision Fund, prescribed by the National Health Act, to bridge the gap in health care financing, with funds released to support provision of a basic minimum package of health services.

According to him, “We are also improving funding of health services through voluntary contributory schemes that reduce out of pocket spending and the risk of catastrophic costs to patients and their families including those with TB.”

Warning on the consequences of the increasing epidemic, the president said: ‘‘If we fail in the fight to reverse the current trend in TB prevalence, TB will continue to fight us and lead to avoidable loss of lives, especially among the economically productive age group, and amongst our most vulnerable groups, especially women.

‘‘It is imperative that we not only commit to ending the TB epidemic as one of the milestones enshrined in the SDGs, but also to institute an accountability element to ensure that our commitment translates to achievement of desired results.’’

President Buhari, who acknowledged that the work of the Stop TB Partnership all over the world had been so remarkable, despite numerous challenges, pledged his commitment to providing needed political leadership and support to end TB in Nigeria and globally.

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The commitment was reaffirmed on Monday at a high level meeting on the sidelines of 20th International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA) themed “Leadership of African First Ladies in the fight against HIV and AIDs.”

The conference was held at the Kigali Convention Centre.

President of OAFLAD and First Lady of the Republic of Congo H.E. Madam Antoinette Tchibota Sassou-Nguesso said the First Ladies had been fighting HIV for almost 20 years since OAFLAD was formed.

The support and experience gained in the period she explained, had demonstrated “our willingness to achieve the objectives for which OAFLAD was formed.”

First Lady of Rwanda, Jeannette Kagame said in her welcome remarks that OAFLA was born, “out of our collective need, to amplify the voices of those living with, and affected by HIV and AIDS, especially the women and children, who are the most vulnerable.”

She invited First Ladies to reflect on their multifaceted roles in this journey to ensure that communities fully thrived and called on them to acknowledge what had worked and reveal what had not, to enable them to make more meaningful interventions.

She said initiatives such as the Free to Shine Campaign, being anchored by African First Ladies had made tremendous impact, “pushing us to strengthen our efforts and commitment to end Pediatric AIDS and keep mothers healthy.”

Comments by Donald Kaberuka of the Global Fund and Malick Fall of UNICEF all indicated that Africa has made tremendous progress economically and politically but they both agreed on the need to increase budget for public health and call on OAFLA to be part of the campaign.

Representative of Nigeria’s First Lady, Aisha Buhari and Special Assistant to the President on OAFLAD, Mohammed Albishir, in a media interaction said, Mrs. Buhari had used her position as UNAIDS Ambassador on Elimination of Mother-to-Child Transmission (EMTCT) of HIV/AIDS to partner extensively in the reduction of the prevalence of HIV children and young people.

Only last week, he said, she organised a symposium to mark the World AIDS Day, 2019 under the theme: “Communities make the difference, adolescent and young people matter.”

She also had a successful launch of the Free to Shine Campaign late last year.

Mr. Albishir said she had reiterated the importance of girl child education, poverty reduction, equality and fight against GBV as important factors that will reduce HIV among youths, especially girls, whose rate of infection has been proven to be on the rise.

The conference was attended by the First Ladies of Ghana, Niger, Chad, Rwanda, Botswana and Congo as well as international development organisations and donor agencies.

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Tabat gave this advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, on Sunday, in commemoration of the World AIDS Day.

World AIDS Day is observed every December 1 to raise more awareness on the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection, as well as to remember those who have died of the disease.

The theme of the 2019 World AIDS Day is “Communities make the difference.’’

The medical expert stressed the need for people, irrespective of their health status, to conduct HIV test screening at least twice a year.

“Every health practitioner wants to prevent every individual diagnosed with HIV from progressing to AIDS.

“Firstly, it is advised that every individual should regularly do HIV test.

“This should be at least once or twice in a year, except for high risk individuals such as commercial sex workers, people married to infected spouses, hospital workers, and those dealing with HIV/AIDS patients,” he said.

According to him, the test in most hospitals and HIV/AIDS centres is free and could be done discreetly if the person did not want their identity known.

While advising people living with HIV/AIDS to take their medication seriously so as to prevent any health complications, the doctor stressed the need for the society to stop any form of stigmatisation on persons living with the disease.

Tabat noted that the 2019 theme would further educate the public on prevention, control, appropriate treatment and the role communities, government and NGOs were playing in the AIDS response at international, national and local levels.

According to the 2019 report by the Joint United Nations Programme on AIDS, UNAIDS, and the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), there is an estimated 1.9 million people living with HIV in Nigeria.

Source: NAN

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Information about the pledge is in a statement by Mrs Toyin Aderibigbe, the Media Officer, National Agency for Control of AIDS, NACA, on Tuesday in Abuja.

She noted that the pledge was made by the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, at the Sixth Replenishment Conference of Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria held in Lyon, France on October 9 and October 10.

She quoted the minister as saying “every Nigerian has a right to good health. We have a responsibility to ensure that this basic right is available to all Nigerians.

“Government is committed to enhancing ownership and sustainability of the HIV/AIDS response.”

He stressed that the pledge was in accordance with President Muhammadu Buhari’s commitment at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in 2017 to make government resources (approximately N3.5 billion) available to enable an additional 50,000 Nigerians be on life-saving Antiretroviral (ARV) therapy every year.

Peter Sands, Executive Director of the Global Fund, who spoke on “Building on the Concept of Shared Responsibility” at the conference, said “with the incredible support of partners and donors around the world, we succeeded in reaching over 14 billion Dollars to help save 16 million lives.”

Mr Gunilla Carlsson, the Executive Director of UNAIDS, said “Nigeria bears a huge burden of the global TB, malaria and HIV epidemics, so it is imperative that both domestic and international investments are urgently scaled up.”

Dr. Gambo Aliyu, the Director General, National Agency for Control of AIDS, NACA, described the increase in Nigeria’s pledge to the Global Fund as a strong signal of the country’s readiness and commitment to end tuberculosis, malaria and HIV epidemics.

He said, “continued government funding for National Treatment and Prevention Programmes is vital for the sustainability of the AIDS response.”

The director general, however, appealed to state governors to equally show commitment in investing to end AIDS in Nigeria as a public health threat by 2030.

Mr Abdulkadiri Ibrahim, the president of Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria, NEPWHAN, urged government to own up to the HIV and AIDS response by putting money into the national response, which according to him is an investment in humanity.

Ibrahim said “our continuous access to medication and our right to healthcare are fundamental rights. Government should make it happen.”

The Sixth Global Fund Replenishment Conference was aimed at raising fund to fight HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that HIV, TB and malaria are preventable and treatable diseases, yet globally kill millions of people each year, which the world has committed through the Sustainable Development Goals to end by 2030.

However, the Global Fund investment case projected that the fund would help to save 16 million lives by 2030 through health system strengthening, reinforcing health security via disease surveillance and tackling health inequities, including human rights and gender barriers.

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The preview is from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

The journalist with bias for health and developmental stories is both producer and executive producer of all films, while she directed two of them.

The films are: The Stigma; Why?; Why Look At Me? And HIV Unedited.

The Stigma is a full length documentary on the discrimination by schools against children living with HIV in Nigeria and was directed by Ms. Ovuorie.

Why?, a non-fiction docu-drama, is a snippet of the fifth part of Ovuorie’s investigative work on HIV.

Directed by Mr. Oluwaseun Adeniyi, it tells a story of the gross rejection, mistreatment, discrimination and stigmatization of a widow, Mrs. Terfa and her daughter; Mimido by their neighbours, house owner and the child’s school.

Though Mimido is the school’s best student, she is yet forced out of the school by the authorities because of her being HIV positive.

HIV Unedited directed by Ovuorie is a docu-story which presents a very serious issue with so much humour. While, Why Look At Me? is an emotional docu-story directed by Mr. Oluwaseun Adeniyi.

Ovuorie revealed that the four films are birthed by her 2018 five-part investigative series on HIV titled: How Nigeria ‘Kills’ Children Living With HIV.

The investigative series revealed how children of school age are denied their fundamental human rights such as education simply because of their being HIV positive.

The in-depth investigation was carried out in Lagos, Ogun, Edo, Delta, Imo, Benue states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja respectively.

The investigation opened the lid of discrimination and stigmatization of HIV in Nigeria’s education sector.

Ovuorie, June 10th, 2019 was presented with the United States President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) Heroes award by the American embassy in Abuja.

This is in celebration of the HIV series and her works in the field of HIV in Nigeria.

Before then, December 2018, the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) and UNAIDS presented her with an award in recognition of her extraordinary work in the field of HIV journalism in Nigeria.

On why she produced the films, Ovuorie says discriminating against persons living with HIV is not only inhuman, but an offence.

She says Nigerians still need better awareness about HIV- being like any other ailment.

“The level of ignorance and misconception about HIV is unable. With more information, education and regular talks about it, there will be much of learning, unlearning and relearning which will impact positively on our public health” she said.

She hopes to screen the films in most, if not all parts of Nigeria.

The films are previewed for free.

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