The National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) has called for active involvement of adolescents and young people in the country in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
The Director General (DG) of NACA, Dr Gambo Aliyu, in a call in Abuja during the National Symposium on HIV Prevention Models for Adolescents and Young People, said it was important for the voices of the young ones to be heard.
Dr Gambo, who was represented by Dr James Anenih, the Director, Community Prevention and Care Services of the agency, stressed that the government was developing initiatives to empower youths in the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS.
HE advised the youths to also be part of developing the strategies to know what will work for them.
According to him, “Evidence compiled in the last year indicated that a huge part of the population generating HIV infection were adolescents and young people and that the response now was to engage them in specific services that would be tailored towards prevention and treatment.”
Part of the strategy the government was deploying for adolescents and young people, he explained, is to empower them to reduce behaviours that put them at risk of contracting HIV.
Dr Olawale Durisinmi, the Country Lead of JSI Research and Training Incorporated, explained that the organisation was providing technical support to the government on HIV prevention to ensure that interventions were designed in a way that would benefit Nigerians.
The organisation, he added, was also geared towards ensuring that the needs and challenges of the target key populations of the intervention were addressed.
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