HIV/AIDS treatment suffers N24b funding gap as AHF seeks $14billion global fund

For Nigeria to place over 500,000 persons living with HIV/AIDs on treatment, approximately N24 billion is required annually to achieve this.The Executive Secretary of the Civil Society for HIV /AIDs in Nigeria (CISHAN), Walter Ugwuocha who disclosed this yesterday at a press conference in Abuja said 80 percent of these persons where located in seven sub states of the country, adding that efforts were being made over the years by the AIDs Healthcare Foundation (AHF) to reduce the scourge nationwide.

Ugwuocha stressed the need for government both at the federal and state level to ensure prompt release of funds to tackle the menace, lamenting that anything that affects releases at the state level would ultimately alter a lot of progress the country was already making.

Country Program Director, AHF-Nigeria, Echey Ijezie, who disclosed that the Global Fund’s Sixth Replenishment Conference in Lyon, France, seeks to raise at least US$14 billion to help save 16 million lives, added that the funds would also help to avert 234 million infections and help the world get back on track to end these diseases. He noted that AHF Nigeria would join the rest of the Global Bureau and stakeholders in Nigeria to lend voices on the need for commitments to the Global Fund to be fulfilled.