By Najib Sani
Bauchi
Bauchi State Agency for the Control of HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Leprosy and Malaria (BACATMA) has disclosed that, out of 247, 990 people who underwent screening for Human Immuno Deficiency Virus (HIV), 4, 079 have been found positive from January to September this year.
Executive Secretary of the agency, Dr Mansur Mustapha Dada, made the disclosure yesterday while briefing newsmen during this year’s World AIDS Day commemoration in the state.
Dr Dada said the 2012 National AIDS and Reproductive Health Survey (NARHS) showed that about 43, 000, representing 0.6 per cent of the state’s population, lived with the disease.
He lamented that only 16, 459 of the infected persons turned up to receive treatment for the viral disease, noting that taking drugs would strengthen the immune system of the patients and enable them live normal life.
“Of the total number of persons counseled, tested and received results in the state this year, 107, 771 pregnant women were screened, out of which 181 were found positive while 382 babies were exposed to the virus,’’ he revealed.
Dada further stated that some of the achievements recorded on HIV/AIDS response in the state were enactment of law by the state House of Assembly against discrimination of HIV positive ‘clients’ and compulsory pre-marital screening for HIV, genotype as well as establishment of state of the art monitoring and evaluation unit in the agency with a view to assessing the activities of government and non-governmental organisations on the disease.
