The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), has said that a robust domestic resource mobilisation with an enduring partnership and shared responsibility is required to sustain the response to HIV and other emerging public health emergencies.
Buhari spoke on Tuesday in Abuja at the launch of a N62bn HIV Trust Fund to help Nigeria end AIDS as a public health threat and place more people living with HIV on annual treatment.
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, disclosed this in a statement he signed on Tuesday titled ‘President Buhari launches N62bn HIV trust fund as Nigeria targets elimination of mother-to-child transmission by 2030’.
The President pledged that his regime would continue to prioritise health interventions to address killer diseases and public health emergencies.
He said, “At the last United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS, I made a call for a renewed global action to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa.”
He added that Ending AIDS as a public health threat in Nigeria would require increased domestic funding.
“We have continued to make good our commitment of placing more people living with HIV on treatment annually using national resources. However, strong domestic resource mobilisation with an enduring partnership and shared responsibility is required to sustain the response to HIV and other emerging public health emergencies,” he said.
President Buhari noted that Nigeria’s purposeful partnership with the private sector in response to COVID 19 pandemic had provided a readily available financing solution to leverage to sustain the HIV response.
He commended the National Agency for the Control of AIDS and the Nigeria Business Coalition Against AIDS for their efforts in establishing the HIV Trust Fund of Nigeria to secure a generation of babies free of HIV.
“Going forward, I hope The HIV Trust Fund of Nigeria will galvanise more of the private sector and other partners to surpass the target of Sixty-Two Billion Naira in the next five years,” Buhari added.
In his remarks, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, announced that since 2005, about $6.2bn dollars had been spent on HIV response in Nigeria.
Mustapha said, “External donors contributed about 80 per cent of the funds, mainly the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The Private Sector contributed 0.1 per cent to 2 per cent of total funds, with the rest of the funds provided by the Nigerian government.
“Since 2005, about $6.2bn has been spent on HIV response in Nigeria. About 80 per cent of the funds were contributed by external donors, mainly the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The Private Sector contributed 0.1 per cent to 2 per cent of total funds with the rest of funds provided by the Nigerian government.”
Chief Launcher and Chairman of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, said the mission of the private sector-led Fund proposed by NACA alongside the Nigeria Business Coalition Against AID is to ensure mobilisation of resources towards the eradication of AIDS in Nigeria, starting with the Prevention of Mother-to-Child transmission of the virus.
“I am reminded that we have 2 million of our compatriots living with HIV/AIDS, and it is our collective responsibility to bring this number down to zero,” he said.
Dangote appealed to individuals and corporate organisations to donate generously toward the Fund, currently chaired by the Group Managing Director of Access Bank Plc, Herbert Wigwe.
Also speaking was the Director-General of NACA, Gambo Aliyu, who said within the last three years, the agency has identified and placed an additional 900,000 persons living with HIV on treatment, bringing the total number of Nigerians on HIV treatment to 1.7 million.
He, however, said despite these achievements, NACA’s national coverage of prevention of mother-to-child transmission is less than 50 per cent, leading to about 22,000 cases of mother-to-child transmission of HIV every year in the country.
