Stakeholders and partners in the crusade against HIV/AIDS in Nigeria on Monday in Abuja had a marathon meeting and brainstormed on how to tackle the burden of reducing Mother To Child Transmission, which is said to be among the highest in the world.
Speaking on the topic ‘Utilising research result in improving HIV response in Nigeria’, the Director-General of National Agency for the Control of AIDS, Prof. John Idoko, observed that since 2009 World AIDS Day, the country had been struggling with the issue of PMTCT.
While admitting that there were gaps in addressing the problem which needed to be closed up, he said, “If you resolve the issues of PMTCT, then half of issues in HIV/AIDS are solved.”
According to Idoko, operational research can actually drive things forward as can be seen in the Save One Million Live initiative by the Federal Government.
The NACA boss, however, stated that operational research looked more on the supply side than on the demand side, adding, “The problem now is how to stimulate the demand side of operation. We cannot reverse the downward trend we are seeing in PMTCT until we increase the demand side of operations.”
He also blamed the PMTCT burden in the country on ”the private sector where women go to deliver instead of government’s health facilities” where provisions for Anti-Retroviral Therapy are made.
Also speaking, the Senior Strategic Information Adviser to UNAIDS, Masauso Nzima, observed that although evidence, “is something we have been talking about for many years, it is being able to understand what we can translate from the evidence to practical strategies.”
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