HIV/AIDS and other ailments
Today, December 1 is World AIDs Day and the Federal Ministry of Health, FMOH, is using this occasion to launch a document on HIV/ AIDS. President Muhammadu Buhari has agreed to launch and kick start the activities for the World AIDS Day this year as part of a way to demonstrate government commitment to address the issue.
We would do test and treat. You should know why this should be so. This is an area we have functioned for several years. Now the world is operating on test and treat.
I said we should just scale up to test and treat. We are looking at the implication and the resources that will be needed and also what we have on ground.
There are about 500,000 Nigerians that will need to be put on treatment and we do not have the resources that we need to take care of the 500,000 this year.
So, what we have done is to prioritise; in our 2017 budget, we are looking at how we would take care of about 100,000 out of the 500,000 and we are looking at donor support including Global Fund and other donors to join us so that we can scale up treatment for the other people.
Buhari’s role in HIV testing
President Buhari will be fast tracking the issue of the test and treat. We also want every Nigerian to know his or her HIV status but priority number one is for those who know their status and are not on treatment should be put on treatment.
No HIV drug shortage
There are rumours circulating that there are shortages of drugs. There are no shortages of drugs in Nigeria; we have the drugs so it is not an issue. The Lagos Sate Government is doing its good.
We are backing it. We are working with all the states and as many states that can scale up the better for us.
Tackling other disease burden We are linking tuberculosis, TB, to HIV. We mentioned that half of those with diabetes do not know their status. Only 20 per cent of people with TB know their status and the remaining 80 per cent do not even know they have TB.
Diabetese cannot infect somebody else, TB can infect. There are many diseases where people don’t even know what they have and we want to improve awareness on disease burden among our population.
I have spoken to the Director General of the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN. I am talking with the DG of Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, on how we can use their facilities to inform Nigerians regularly about how to improve their health status.
The end point is that every home should be the primary health care facility and every Nigerian should be the primary care giver because if you take care for your health the way you take care of your car, no one will fall ill. When people wake up in the morning, they clean their cars, check the tyres, the engine oil, start the engine and listen to it before they drive off. If they try to drive off and there is a cracking noise, they stop.
We should treat our body better than that. When you wake up and you have headache with fever, you don’t say you reject it and match on because when your car has problem you don’t reject it and drive on.
So, we are trying to improve awareness and health seeking behaviour. The whole implication is that it will be cheaper to prevent illness than to treat it. The next line is that when it is early, it is also cheaper.
It is when it is advanced it is complicated and becomes a problem. At that stage we start asking where do we get money from?
Primary health care, PHC
With respect Primary health care, PHC, where are we? We looked at the resource requirement for rehabilitating PHCs and for year one, it is about, N400 billion.
Within this context, we go caught by the deteriorating economic situation but it is something we still must do so we decided to stretch it, rather than two years we stretched it further.
The inter-ministerial committee has the report ready but it has got to be considered by the Federal Government. What we are now doing is that we have some models that we are trying to copy. In our 2017 Budget, we are putting in 1000.
Through support by DFID, we are doing 950 in the north and we are encouraging the states to use the fund from the ‘Save One Million Lives’ to also start the rehabilitation. I have gone to commission the one in Niger, which has done 66 PHCs. I have gone to Borno.
Also, Kaduna has started. I will be in Abia in December. This is something we must do together and I have done presentation on this at the Governors’ Forum, who will give us the support. Let us start; it is a collective thing.
This is because the Federal Government does not own a PHC but we own the policy. We will provide states with assistance and train people to mann the PHC.
We are doing community midwifery in the north and we are using the ‘Save One Million Lives’ to improve services in PHCS. So, we are still implementing the same PHC projects. but using many more sources rather than take it over.
Taking it over also has its implication. When we take it over, the states are likely to abandon the project.
By: Appolonia Adeyemi
New Telegraph News
ABUJA: Training Schedule for Basic Life Support BLS, Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS), Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support ACLS, First Aid, CPR, AED
PORTHARCOURT: Training Schedule for Basic Life Support BLS, Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS), Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support ACLS, First Aid, CPR, AED
LAGOS: Training Schedule for Basic Life Support BLS, Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS), Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support ACLS, First Aid, CPR, AED
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