Country
Director of UNAIDS, Mr Bilali Camara, Friday said 3.4million Nigerians are
living with HIV/AIDS virus in Nigeria and in 2014 alone 60,000 children were
infected. Camara made this disclosure during a courtesy visit to the
Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Hon Femi
Gbajabiamila.
He also advised the Nigerian government to
encourage pharmaceutical companies to produce retroviral drugs locally rather
than relying on imported ones. On the number of those infected he
explained that of the total number, 60 thousand are children
who suffer from the scourge through mother-to-child transmission or
contaminated blood, 124thousand were affected in total.
He said the trend has put Nigeria on the scale
of nations that need to do more to curb the scourge of HIV/Aids, adding that
it’s the duty of interventionist agencies like the UN to alert nations on the
need for more effective actions aimed at curbing the menace.
“We as Africans have a responsibility to take
up the global initiative on Aids for the benefit of our people. Domestic
resources have proved inadequate to match the global drive for eradication of
the disease.
“We must make sure that investment
coming from outside is matched with what we are making inside as Africans”, he
said.
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