The United States Government said it is planning to conduct the largest HIV survey in Nigeria in June 2018. The Survey according to the National Agency for the Control of Aids (NACA) would produce a more accurate data to enable the government and relevant agencies channel public resources toward addressing the issue.
The Director General of NACA, Sani Aliyu in an exclusive interview with Premiumtimes also explained the reason why Nigeria still records high rate of mother to child transmission of HIV.
On why the US is carrying out the survey he said
"The survey will be starting, hopefully, by June this year. The survey is partly sponsored by the United States government and Global Fund. It is the largest HIV survey ever done in the world. Partly because of the size of our population. We will be doing it across the country. We have gone very far in getting the initial stages of the survey. For instance, training is about to start and most of the guidelines have been written. From the Nigerian side, ethical approval have been given by the relevant government body and we are waiting for ethical approval from the U.S. side in order for us to get started. Equipment have also been procured and we are already starting to link up with state governments. We will be doing advocacy to state governors and also to traditional rulers.
"The survey will cover the whole country, what it will show is where the issues are when it comes to HIV. At the moment, a lot of the surveys that are being done in the past have very wide confidence interval. Confidence interval means that they are not very precise because the sample sizes have been relatively small and the methodology has been different. This time around, we want to have more precise figures. We want to know right down to the state level and the sub states structures as well where people living with HIV are likely to be. So that, not only government but also our donors can target and channel resources towards those areas.
"A common thing that is now happening over a year or two among our partners is there has been challenges in getting people living with HIV. There are parts of the country that you will go to test people, and you will test and test, only few people will be positive. This increases the cost of delivering the programme because these test kits are expensive. If I have to test 10,000 people to get a handful that are positive, it is not good use of public resources.
"What we will prefer is to put resources in and get a high yield that will enable us to pick up a larger number of people having the disease and then linking them up to care. So that is what we are trying to do with the survey. The survey will tell us where the issues are, to enable us put in more resources in such areas. Nobody should be left behind. If you have HIV, it is important you are diagnosed. Don’t forget we are talking about public health interventions, and with public health interventions, it goes beyond just the individual as we are looking at larger numbers. The more people we can pick up, the better for the overall response.
"We are doing the survey to help us to channel public resources and use them more effectively, more efficiently and in an equitable manner. So you don’t come to me and say, why am I funding HIV programmes in a state and not in another? Then I can say to you, we have saturated the other state with HIV testing last year and our survey shows there are maybe three or four times more people in the state we are funding that is why we are channeling those resources there.
"It is a very important survey. I will like to appeal to our people and communities that when the survey comes, there will be a lot of publicity and they should please not be afraid and engage with us. We will be doing lots of testing, data for the overall good of the country and the overall good of the national response. And once we have the data, we will be able to have more robust national response to the HIV epidemic."
