36.7m living with HIV – UNESCO

By Patrick Andrew

Abuja

Nigerians have been urged to increase awareness on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) syndrome which has so far infected no fewer than 36.7 million people worldwide.
The figure released by UNESCO, showed that sub-Sahara Africa bears the heaviest burden of the scourge as 64 percent new cases of all HIV and AIDS are domiciled in West and East African countries.
Its data further showed that in 2016 alone, there were 1.8 million new cases, while an estimated one million people died annually from AIDS, the release stated, stressing that “19.5 million are reportedly receiving antiretroviral therapy.”
Consequently, UNESCO insisted that creating awareness is essential to reduce the scourge and accompanying stigmatisation.
In compliance with this request, the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) organised awareness programme for its staff where, according to a statement yesterday, they were brought up to date with issues related to HIV/AIDS and its management.
“As a company, we place a great value on the health and well-being of all our employees and we know that the success of the business is directly proportional to health and safety of all our staff across the entire franchise area.
“Our company value of teamwork implies that we should support each other considering that we are all being impacted by the disease in one way or other.
“It is on this premise that I would like to charge us all to be more aware of our status and also spread the word as we jointly work together to curb this global menace,” the Managing Director, Engr. Ernest Mupwaya, said.
The firm said it would be willing to collaborate with other organisations to spread the awareness campaign and donated N3 million to the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) for the purchase of ambulance.
The company also organised an essay competition on HIV awareness among its staff, stressing that it was meant to ginger them to garner adequate information on HIV/AIDS as well as moved them to get to know their AIDS status.
Amina Imam emerged the overall winner, while Zainab Yusuf and Udoje Orji were first and second runners-up, respectively.

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