Source: Vanguard
Abuja — The National Primary Health Care Development Agency, NPHCDA, has said 18 states of the federation were set for integration into basic HIV/AIDS services at the lowest level of health care delivery in the country.

Executive Director of the agency, Dr. Ado Mohammed, who disclosed this in Abuja,

weekend, said the states had undergone five trainings and workshops preparatory for the integration.

He listed the states to include Abia, Anambra, Enugu, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Edo, and Rivers. Others include Kaduna, Borno, Gombe, Taraba, Benue, Kogi, Nasarawa, Plateau and Lagos.

Muhammed said he had to deploy trained workers to the field to provide HIV services as the bulk of Nigerians live in the rural areas, adding that the only contact people in rural areas had with health care services was through the primary health care centres.

He noted that secondary and tertiary health facilities in Nigeria were already saturated and limited in capacity, ensuring that people having access to HIV/AIDS services at the primary health care level was key to national efforts to scale up HIV services.

The NPHCDA Boss explained that the choice of the 18 states was based on the burden of HIV/AIDS prevalence and the fact that they had sero-prevalence higher than the national average.

• Nigeria