‘Ending HIV/AIDS in 2030 could be a mirage if…’

Do you think ending HIV/AIDS in 2030 is feasible?  If we have about 3.4 million people living with HIV/AIDS, and we have about 750, 000 on the Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ARV), it means that about 55 per cent of people who need to be placed on the drugs do not have access to them. If we […]

Do you think ending HIV/AIDS in 2030 is feasible?
 If we have about 3.4 million people living with HIV/AIDS, and we have about 750, 000 on the Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ARV), it means that about 55 per cent of people who need to be placed on the drugs do not have access to them. If we have that gap and universal access is not a priority, then ending it by 2030 would be a mirage.
It’s high time we did things right as a country to ensure that everyone living with HIV has access to ARV. Gone are the days when we said the CD4 count of people living with HIV should get down before they could be placed on treatment.  There is no excuse to wait for Nigerians living with the virus to get down to AIDS before you place them on ARV. It is the violation of their fundamental human rights to live.

For Nigeria to achieve the target of ending AIDS at 2030, what can be done?
To end AIDS in 2030, what needs to be done is that everyone living with HIV should be placed on ARV; then we test and treat people. We don’t have to wait any longer. If a person is diagnosed with HIV, the person should be placed on treatment.  Our government has to invest in treatment as a means to prevent the transmission of the infection.
Research has confirmed that when you place people on treatment on time, it goes a long way in curbing the spread of the disease. Transmission of the disease will start with an infected person. So when you test and place a patient on treatment, you are helping the general population.
If we want to get it done in the right way, we have to test and treat. Also, we must make sure that 90 percent of people living with HIV know their status. In fact, not many Nigerians know their HIV status.
On the National Agency for the Control of AIDS website, you will get the information that only 15 percent of Nigerians know their HIV status. There is a gap in terms of testing. The beginning of access to treatment should start with testing. People need to know their status before they can be eligible for treatment.
Again, 90 percent of people living with HIV are placed on antiretroviral drugs. And those placed on antiretroviral have viral suppression. Vision 90:90:90 is the answer that can drive us to ending AIDS in 2030. 
In 2015, we should not be having people coming down with AIDS, but today, you still have people having a late presentation to the hospital. They are coming down with AIDS because they did not know their status on time. I think it is pathetic.

Recently, some persons living with HIV/AIDS were asked to pay some fees to access their ARV, what do you have to say?
Those are barriers that will hinder ending AIDS by 2030. We cannot end AIDS in 2030 if are still going to cross these barriers, such as paying for treatments, administration on drug pick-up, and so on.
We should not forget the fact that HIV is associated with poverty. In Nigeria, you know the level of poverty and unemployment is very high. Many of the people living with HIV are poor. We also know the social stigma in the labour market.
It is difficult for you to get a job if you are HIV positive, even if you are qualified and competent. Poverty is predominant with people living with HIV, so by introducing more unnecessary charges, it makes it more difficult.  

It is said that donors decline funding the antiretroviral drugs, what is your view on that?
I think our government knows what to do. The right to good health care is enshrined in the constitution of Nigeria. I don’t think this right should be violated by lack of access to good health care. If we want to get it right, we have to start putting our money where our mouth is. The Nigerian government needs to start investing in HIV and AIDS treatment.
They should see it as an investment because a healthy population/people is a healthy nation. We know that HIV prevalence amongst the productive age of 15 to 49 years is high, which means it’s affecting the productive age of Nigerians. It’s time we started investing because the donors would come. And there is a timeline to whatever support they want to give to the country.
Nigeria has moved to the middle income classification of the World Bank; that means we are not a poor country. So, if Nigeria is not a poor country, we should be able to invest and take care of the responsibility we have. How can Nigerians who are working and living with HIV pay their taxes to either the federal or state government of Nigeria but they are getting access to antiretroviral therapy through the support of American taxpayers’ money. To me, it is not realistic.
How can I be paying my tax every month but cannot even get Paracetamol in a government-owned HIV clinic in Nigeria? This is not done. We all have been at the mercy of American government and the taxpayers’ money of Americans for a long time. Of course it will not be sustainable.
What is sustainable is for us to be responsible to our people. Nigeria should wake up to its responsibilities and invest in the treatment, care and support for people living with HIV, those infected with tuberculosis and people having malaria. These diseases should not be killing people in 2015 in Nigeria. 
So we want to appeal to the Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, to use his office to eliminate all forms of barriers that will not allow the poor woman in Ekiti and the poor woman in Zamfara to access the antiretroviral therapy.
The Nigerian government should invest to ensure that the pregnant woman would not have any form of barrier to accessing prevention of mother-to child-transmission of HIV. In 2015, we should not have children born with HIV. We want the minister to use his office to ensure that universal access is priority for the Nigerian government.