How stigma reduced among people with HIV/AIDS in Taraba

“People have stopped castigating us; friends and relations no longer reject us,” said Mrs Nuhu, a person living with HIV/AIDS in Taraba State. She said stigma and discrimination of people living with HIV/ AIDS in the home, work place, public places and among  relatives has reduced in the state since the federal   government took […]

“People have stopped castigating us; friends and relations no longer reject us,” said Mrs Nuhu, a person living with HIV/AIDS in Taraba State.

She said stigma and discrimination of people living with HIV/ AIDS in the home, work place, public places and among  relatives has reduced in the state since the federal   government took full ownership of HIV/AIDS response in Taraba State. 

A couple, Hamida and Hamza Abdullahi, who also lives with the disease, said they went for a HIV test before they got married four years ago and both tested negative.

However, a few months later when Hamida got pregnant and went for ante- natal clinic in one of the hospitals in Jalingo, Taraba State capital, she tested HIV positive. 

She returned home in tears and informed her husband. Hamza said at first when his wife told him about her status, he felt like divorcing her but decided to go to the hospital and confirm what she told him. 

The following day at the hospital, she still tested positive to another test while her husband was negative. The medical doctor, who had earlier revealed Hamida’s status, advised her to go for further tests to enable her start taking antiretroviral drugs. 

“I told the doctor that I would not divorce my wife and since then we have been together as husband and wife. We love each other and have no problems,” Hamza said.

He said he went for HIV/AIDS screening several times after that but tested negative, adding that his wife is on antiretroviral drugs and they have two children who were not infected.

The medical officer in-charge of HIV/AIDS programme at the hospital, Dr. Dashe Dasogol, said once a patient is on antiretroviral drugs, his or her partner who is not infected, would not be infected with the virus.

Dasogol said the same case applies to infected pregnant women, saying that a pregnant woman who is on antiretroviral drugs would not infect her child.

“That is why we advise them to attend ante-natal clinic to ensure early detection of the virus, and once that is done, the infected mother will be placed on drugs to prevent mother-to-child transmission. We have achieved between 85 to 90 per cent prevention of virus transmission from mother-to-new born babies in our hospital,” Dr Dasogol said. 

The Director-General Taraba State Agency for the Control of AIDS (TACA), Ibrahim Sale Abba, said the state with the support of NACA has been carrying out aggressive public enlightenment against stigma of people living with HIV as well as information on the spread of the disease.

He said the agency had toured the entire 16 local government areas of the state and addressed individuals, students, groups, and religions leaders against all tendencies and actions that  isolate or reject people living with HIV.

Sale Abba said prior to the mass enlightenment campaign, people living with the disease were discriminated in schools, in public places and at homes.

He said the approach has started yielding results as a local survey conducted by the agency through HIV tests on individuals across the 16 local government areas of the state has shown significant reduction of infection of the disease in the state.

The DG TACA explained that before the local survey, Taraba ranked highest with prevalence rate of 10.5 , and second to Rivers  State on the national rating of infection.

“People in the state are now willingly coming to heath facilities to check their status because they know they would not be discriminated if they tested positive,”  Abba said.

He explained that during the survey, blood samples of 55,000 persons was collected and screened for HIV out of which 5 per cent of the total samples tested positive.

He said there was need for the National Agency for the Control of AIDS to conduct another national survey on HIV/AIDS in the state in order to confirm the survey conducted by Taraba Agency for the Control of AIDS.

He added that success was achieved in the  HIV/AIDS programme in the state since the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) took control of the programme.

Reduction of stigma, infection rates and prevention of mother -to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS are some of the success stories of government’s full ownership of HIV/AIDS programme in Taraba State.

Foreign donors in collaboration with the federal government have been funding the national HIV/AIDS response in the country from the outset.

According to the Director-General of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), Dr Sani Aliyu  70 % of funding for the national HIV/AIDS  response in the country till date is done by donors.

There was need for government to take full responsibility in the fight against HIV/AIDs especially as international partners and donor agencies were pulling out, thereby creating funding gaps in the funding of HIV/AIDs programme in the country.

As a result of this the federal government through the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) under a pilot programme is solely funding HIV/AIDS response in two states of the country, Abia and Taraba where donors have stopped funding.

The agency  in collaboration with some media organizations last week carried out a tour of HIV intervention sites in Taraba State. 

Head, Corporate Communications Unit of NACA, Mrs. Toyin Aderibigbe  who represented the DG during the tour said it was aimed at allowing the media to have an unbiased overview of the government’s efforts in the ownership and sustainability drive of the national HIV/AIDS response. 

She said it was important to give the media the opportunity to see what was on ground, and interact with care givers and beneficiaries of the various HIV intervention programmes in the state.

Challenges 

In all the facilities visited during the tour , Daily Trust investigations revealed that  key complains and challenges were the constant break down of testing tools and CD count machines which are vital in the HIV/AIDS Control programme.

At the Federal Medical Center Jalingo, a consultant physician, and head of HIV/AIDS programme, Dr Aisha Shehu Adamu said  since the coming of  NACA in the state following the withdrawal of America and other international donors,   over 7, 000 persons were enrolled for HIV/ AIDS in the center and about half of the number have started taking antiretroviral drugs.

She said however, there was shortage of personnel and no bio medical engineer in the entire state to attend to the  problems of breakdown of machines and tools.

Medical officer in-charge of HIV/AIDS programme, at the Government House Clinic, Dr. Danga I. Danga said there was need for  sustained supply of re-agents and drugs as well as functional machines and tools because 3,500 patients were enrolled in the clinic and 100 patients were attended to on daily basis.

Some patients told newsmen that the federal government should monitor how the programme was being run  because patients were now compelled to pay N1,500 for CD count tests and other tests which was not the case under the former arrangement with foreign donors.

HIV orphans 

Representatives of organizations of people living with HIV/AIDS have called on NACA to provide funds for the care of children orphaned by AIDS.

A spokeperson for the groups, Madam Helen Dauda said some local and international agencies that used to provide financial support for the children have stopped.

She said such organizations used to provide over N4 million for their care annually, but now many of the children have been withdrawn from schools.