Your daily Selection of IRIN Africa PlusNews reports, 8/23/2004

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U N I T E D N A T I O N S

Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Integrated Regional Information Network

[These reports do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

CONTENT:

1 - NIGERIA: Government plans ambitious expansion of antiretroviral

therapy

1 - NIGERIA: Government plans ambitious expansion of antiretroviral

therapy

ABUJA, 20 August (PLUSNEWS) - Nigeria is appealing for US $248 million to

help it provide subsidised antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for 200,000 people

living with HIV/AIDS by the end of 2005, Health Minister Eyitayo Lambo

said.

Lambo told journalists on Wednesday that most of the money for the

ambitious programme would probably come from the United States.

" We are treating 14,000 people. By the end of next year we want to be able

to treat 200,000, " the health minister said.

Pierre Mpele, the head of UNAIDS in Nigeria, told PlusNews on Friday that

in addition to the United States, the Global Fund to fight AIDS and

Tuberculosis and the World Bank were also expected to fund the expansion

of ARV treatment in a big way.

However, the government has budgeted only $9 million for ARV therapy this

year and its existing programme has been widely criticised as poorly

organised and underfunded.

Some Nigerian AIDS activists said Lambo's drive to increase the number of

people receiving these life-enhancing drugs by 13-fold in one year was

unrealistic and unachievable.

" Regarding the situation we face, this plan is not realistic, it just

cannot work, " said Mohammed Farouk, executive director of AIDS Alliance in

Nigeria, an influential non-governmental organisation.

Farouk told PlusNews that the government's existing plan to provide cheap

drugs for 10,000 adults and 5,000 children living with AIDS throughout

Nigeria was already inadequate and under threat from delayed funding and

poor organisation.

He noted that few ARV drugs were available outside the commercial capital

Lagos and that stocks were always scarce.

Nevertheless, Lambo said the Federal Executive Council, a government

budget planning committee, had approved the $248 million plan to extend

ARV treatment to 200,000 people next year and an ad-hoc committee would be

set up to collect the necessary funds from donors.

US President Bush has launched a $15 billion initiative aimed at

helping 14 countries to fight HIV/AIDS.

This Presidential Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has allocated

$58 million to Nigeria this year, half of which will be channeled through

faith-based organisations. PEPFAR has not yet announced how much it will

provide in 2005.

The Global Fund has been even more generous, granting $70 million to

Nigeria this year. But likewise, it has not yet indicated how much it

plans to give the country next year.

Lambo said the $248 million would not just be spent on ARV drugs, which

can improve the quality of life of people living with AIDS and improve

their survival rate, but which cannot cure the disease.

The money would also be spent on training health workers, providing

preventive counselling and expanding AIDS testing facilities, he said.

Mpele said UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation (WHO) would back

Nigeria's efforts to raise the necessary funds from donors.

" The government, with our support, is scaling up the HIV/AIDS treatment

plan to reach one million people living with AIDS by 2009, within the

context of the 'three by five' initiative, " Mpele told IRIN.

This global initiative by WHO and UNAIDS aims to provide antiretroviral

therapy to three million people with HIV/AIDS in developing countries by

the end of 2005.

" Real efforts are being made and the improvement of the Nigerian situation

will have positive repercussions throughout the region, " Mpele added.

Nigeria is Africa's most populous country with an estimated 126 million

people. Of these, more than six million are officially estimated to be

infected with the HIV virus that causes AIDS and around one million would

benefit from ARV treatment.

Beneficiaries of the government's current ARV programme are charged just

over $7 per month for treatment, whereas they would have to pay between

$25 and $72 to buy the same medicines at commercial prices

The latest annual sentinel survey in Nigeria, released in May, showed that

the HIV prevalence rate had declined to 5.0 percent from 5.8 percent in

2003.

However, the survey, based on the voluntary testing of pregnant women

attending ante-natal clinics throughout the country, forecast that the HIV

prevalence rate would increase over the coming five years.

[ENDS]

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