Pres. Buhari launches N62.1billion HIV trust fund
President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday in Abuja launched a N62 billion trust fund to help Nigeria end AIDS as a public health threat and place more people living with HIV on treatment annually.
Speaking at the launch of the HIV Trust Fund of Nigeria (HTFN), the President in a statement by presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina pledged that his administration would continue to prioritize health interventions to address killer diseases and public health emergencies.
”At the last United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS, I made a call for a renewed global action to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa.
”Ending AIDS as a public health threat in Nigeria will require increased domestic funding. We have continued to make good our commitment of placing more people living with HIV on treatment annually using national resources.
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”However, strong domestic resource mobilization with an enduring partnership and shared responsibility is required to sustain the response to HIV and other emerging public health emergencies,” he said.
President Buhari noted that Nigeria’s purposeful partnership with the private sector in the response to COVID 19 pandemic had provided a readily available financing solution to leverage on and sustain HIV response.
He commended the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) and the Nigeria Business Coalition Against AIDS for their efforts in establishing the HIV Trust Fund of Nigeria to secure a generation of babies free of HIV.
He also expressed delight with the attendance of notable global key players in HIV response and from the private sector at the event and the pledges made.
”Going forward, I hope The HIV Trust Fund of Nigeria will galvanize more of the private sector and other partners to surpass the target of Sixty-Two Billion Naira in the next five years,” he added.
The private sector-led funding for the HIV Trust fund of Nigeria is expected to crystalise a sustainable financial mechanism for the mobilisation and deployment of domestic private sector resources, particularly aimed at preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV in the country.
According to the Executive Director, Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), Ms Winnie Byanyima, a total of 1.7 million Nigerians are living with HIV, while 1.6 million of that figure are on treatment.
Byanyima further noted that there is an urgent need to scale up domestic funding as Nigeria leads with the highest number of HIV infections among children.
She said although COVID-19 has pushed back intervention on the pandemic, ending AIDS is not just a moral but an economic imperative.
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