Cross River To Sustain Fight Against HIV/AIDS

By Sylvia Etta

Following the listing of Cross River state as one of the HIV endemic states by the National Action Committee on AIDS, NACA, the State Government says it plans to institutionalize a policy that will sustain the fight against HIV/AIDS in the state.

Mr. Roy Ndoma-Egba, Special Adviser, Department of International Donor Cooperation (DIDC) in the state, disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ikom.

Ndoma-Egba said that the measure became necessary because of the anticipated withdrawal of funding on HID/AIDS prevention in the country by international donor partners.

He said: “We anticipate that at one point, there will be donor fatigue and we as a state will institutionalize our processes so as to sustain the war against the scourge.

“Already, there is a donor policy that has reached its last stage and in the next few weeks, we will forward our proposal to the State Executive Council (SEC).
“We also have the state counterpart fund law which is an institutional arrangement that will guarantee counterpart funding for all our programs.

“So with those two very significant steps, I think we are very close to achieving that.’’
He said the state government was committed to the fight against the disease by establishing the State Agency for the Control of AIDS (SACA) and Local Action Committee on AIDS (LACA).
The adviser said that the state government had ensured adequate funding of the state’s LACA.

“We have also made progress in the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV/AIDS.

“The same goes for the ante natal care for pregnant women in all our health facilities across the state,” he said.
Ndoma-Egba said that the prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS in the state was 7.1 per cent and blamed the situation on the state’s proximity to other states with high prevalence rates. (NAN)