The First Lady Senator Oluremi Tinubu has called for an improved advocacy on awareness and prevention of tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, stressing that every child deserves a chance to live a healthy and fulfilling life.
She was speaking at the side event organised by Concordia at the ongoing 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The First Lady spoke at two separate sessions on Importance of innovation towards achieving an AIDS-free generation and health standards and investment towards effectively financing the eradication of tuberculosis.
She said Nigeria’s advocacy on tuberculosis and AIDS in children, especially at the national, state and community levels, would be pursued vigorously.
She said Nigeria has no reason to have high statistics of prevalence in areas of tuberculosis and AIDS in children.
She said with the heightened drive of the President Bola Tinubu Administration in the health sector, she would be advocating enhanced actions by the wives of governors from the states of the Federation to take the campaign about awareness and prevention to the grassroots.
“Innovative approaches can be employed to develop effective methods for HIV prevention. Educational technology hubs, educational apps and digital platforms can all be used to disseminate accurate information specific to HIV care and control.
“Advancement in testing facilitates early detection and prompt linkage to care thus preventing progression and transmission.
“Creative and culturally tailored age-appropriate interventions using technology and social media, can promote and amplify safer sexual and reproductive practices,” she said.
She said there is a robust programme for combating TB in Nigeria through the National TB and Leprosy control which is domiciled in the Federal Ministry of Health.
She said the Tinubu administration has come up with the Renewed Hope Agenda and has emphasised the commitment to restructure the health system in the country through improved financing, provision of modern equipment for diagnosis, capacity building, training of health care workers and transparency in governance as it regards TB response and health care delivery as a whole.
“We need to get people to speak up and know that early detection makes it treatable and we need to see that stigmatization is removed,” she said.
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