By Nneka Nwogwugwu
The Federal government has declared that Nigeria will end HIV transmission by 2022.
It said that by then, Nigeria might have achieved a critical milestone of getting it under control.
The Director General of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), Dr Gambo Aliyu, said this known during a courtesy visit of the Namibian High Commissioner to Nigeria to the agency in Abuja.
He said as quoted by the Nation, “There are things we can learn from Namibia, and what they can learn from our response here. Strategic area to learn from them is in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission.
“Namibia has achieved 100 percent identification and placement of pregnant mothers that live with this. This is the building block to end AIDS. To end AIDS, we must make sure the incoming generation doesn’t have AIDS.
“This is an area we are looking forward to seeing how much we can learn from Namibia and adopt, to reduce the risk of re-inventing the wheel, and also losing efficiency.
“This is one area we want to see between this year and next, to double our successes, to see that those taps that are running (as far as HIV/AIDS is concerned) in the country are no longer running.
“Nigeria is now set to end AIDS because we have achieved a critical milestone of getting it under control. By next year, God willing, Nigeria should be able to control HIV transmission.”
While hailing Nigeria’s efforts in curbing the spread, Namibian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Humphrey Geiseb, also informed that Namibia, have been able to completely prevent the occurrence of mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS.