As the International Donor Agencies continue to withdraw their support from Nigeria and other African countries, stakeholders in Akwa Ibom State have called on the Nigerian government to take ownership and fund the treatment and care for HIV/AIDS and other diseases.
They made the call on Monday during the inauguration of the State HIV Domestic Resource Mobilization Committee organized by the Akwa Ibom State Agency for the Control of AIDS(AkSACA) in partnership with USAID Local Health System and Sustainability (LHSS) project in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state capital.
The Consultant of USAID LHSS, Inah Sunday in his remarks noted that the major donor to HIV/AIDS funding is USAID and high time Akwa Ibom State government looked inward on how to raise funds domestically to ensure sustainability, if the donor partners leave finally.
He said government should make budgetary provisions and ensure releases so that HIV/AIDS scourge would be tackled effectively.
According to him, “Donor funding is reducing, we want states and the government of Nigeria to take ownership to ensure they are able to provide resources for treatment and care of.HIV and AIDS and other diseases. We want adequate releases in the budget to be made.”
The Project Manager of AKSACA in the state, Dr. Enobong Akpan in his welcome address noted that Nigeria is the second largest HIV positive population in the world and relies mostly on external donors for its HIV control adding that Akwa Ibom is one of the states contributing very significantly high numbers to the national population.
He said ending AIDS as a public health threat requires increased and sustainable domestic funding revealing that international donor accounts for over 81 percent of Nigeria’s HIV spending, which is unsustainable and create funding gaps that can be closed by identifying domestic funding resources.
Akpan noted that over 160,000 persons in Akwa Ibom are currently receiving treatment on HIV/AIDS with 10,150 recorded new positives between October 2023 to September 2024.
He harped on the need to scale up efforts towards addressing existing gaps in the response, especially in critical areas of Positive Mother To Child Transmission (PMTCT), Pediatric and adolescence HIV, key population HIV programs, drug use among others.
Speaking, the Chairman, House Committee on Health at the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, Mr Moses Essien assured of the Assembly’s readiness to make budgetary provisions for resource allocation noting that the most important thing is the implementation.
He recalled how the Assembly passed the HIV anti stigmatization bill which is still waiting for the governor’s assent noting that if the assent delays, the House would invoke relevant sections of the law to make the governor pass it officially into law.
The chairman of the newly inaugurated committee, a former speaker of the state Assembly, Sam Ikon, in his acceptance speech thanked AKSACA for deeming them fit to serve in the committee and pledged commitment to ensure the objectives which the committee was set up were achieved.
He said in attempt to shift attention from donor agencies, they would incorporate private and public sectors, churches, civil society organisations and the NUJ to drive the process of domestic resource mobilization and implementation of the state’s HIV response.
He, therefore promised to explore his connections as the former Chairman, House committee on Finance and Appropriation and as the former speaker of the state Assembly to champion for increased budgetary allocations and releases from government sources on behalf of AKSACA.
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