.70,000 Infants Infected Annually With HIV/AIDS In Nigeria – NACA

The National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) has revealed that 70,000 infants are infected with HIV/AIDS through mother to child transmission in Nigeria annually.The Director-General of the agency; Professor John Idoko told Channels Television that Nigeria bears the largest burden of HIV positive women who transmit to their babies.

He said out of 6 million pregnancies annually, 230,000 are HIV positive and mother to child transmission. 70,000 positive infants as the outcome annually, making this group a major source of HIV transmission followed by sex workers.

On the prevalence rate of the HIV/AIDS in Nigeria, geographical statistics from NACA, places Benue state as the highest in the country followed closely by Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Anambra and the Federal Capital Territory.States like Kebbi, Ekiti, Jigawa and Katsina have very low prevalence rates.

Shocking: 40% of Benue state Citizenry HIV positive.

THE Benue State government has disclosed that over one million out of the 4.5 million population in the state have been infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)

This was made known at the training of media professional on HIV/AIDS held at the Conference Hall, Ministry of Information, Markurdi, Benue State.The Executive Secretary, Benue State Action on Control of AIDS (BESACA), Mrs. Grace Wende, in a paper entitled “Basic facts on HIV/AIDS,” said that about 400,000 children living with the virus have been placed on antiretroviral drugs (ARV), adding that 708,640 adults are living with the disease.Based on the statistics, about two out of five people in the state are carriers of the disease, with women having it more  than men.According to Mrs. Wende, the children carriers of the disease, who have the highest infection rate, were born with the disease. These children, according to her, got the disease from mothers who failed to go for ante-natal care at government-owned hospitals where their status could have been detected earlier.“In Benue State, the number of adults infected with HIV/AIDS was 708,640, out of which 21,259 were new infections in 2011. In the same year, 17,139 women were found positive. The number of children requiring ARV was 398,888,” she said.Mrs Wende cited the attitude of the people of the state to unprotected sex and the rising number of youths becoming homosexuals as factors responsible for the rise in the Scourge

I thought it was being phased out already. This is shocking and urgent steps needs to be taken by both the populace and government to step the tide