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Thursday, April 25, 2024
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AIDS

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In a bid to make this year’s World AIDS Day highly impactful, the Nigeria Red Ribbon Coalition, a strategic public-private sector alliance, organised a novelty football match yesterday in Lagos to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS and also provide free HIV Testing and Counselling services.

The celebrity football match featured ex-international football stars who have carved a niche for themselves in the soccer sporting world as well as notable celebrities in the Nigerian music and film industry.

Leading the Ex-international stars were Emmanuel Babayaro (health Ambassador and Ex-Super Eagles Goalkeeper), Ifeanyi Udeze, Victor Agali, Emmanuel Okocha, Abdul Isah and several others. Representing the movie and music industry were stars like Belinda Effah (actress and presenter), John Njamah (actor/movie producer), ID Cabassa (popular music producer whose real name is Olumide Ogunade), Sound Sultan (a Nigerian rapper, singer-songwriter, actor, comedian and recording artist, born Olanrewaju Fasasi), and a host of other celebrities who took time out of their busy schedules to join hands in pushing back the scourge of our common adversary – HIV.

‎The coalition convened by Coca-Cola , Nigeria comprises Youth Empowerment Foundation (YEF), Youth Empowerment and Development Initiative (YEDI), Society for Family Health (SFH).

Declaring the match open, the convener and Community Affairs Manager, Coca-Cola Nigeria, Emeka Mba, reiterated the company’s resolve to support grassroots innovative approaches aimed at improving lives nationwide. He noted that the Coalition which started last year, was building on the successes made at the inaugural edition in 2015 by mobilizing and sensitizing people to know their status with the provision of free HIV testing services in a friendly environment, tackling issues of stigmatization, discrimination and fear of getting tested, promoting social inclusion and adequate care for People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) and stimulating a larger stakeholder involvement.

Mba added that no individual, government, or organisation can single-handedly make meaningful progress in the fight against HIV/AID, hence the need for a coalition.

In her remarks, the Executive Director, Youth Empowerment and Development Initiative (YEDI), Anu Ishola underscored the coalition’s strategy of leveraging each party’s organisational strength and corporate core competences that has brought the pan-Nigeria alliance thus far.

“We decided to have a strategic alliance that boasts of credible NGOs like Society for Family Health, Youth Empowerment Foundation (YEF), YEDI and other private sector partners like Ford Foundation, Federal Palace Hotel, Owu SportsWear, etc. Coupled with celebrity advocacy – with a star-studded Novelty match on the side, we have been able to reach out to a large spectrum of people who have come out not just to watch football, but also to voluntarily get tested and counselled for HIV.”

She expressed gratitude to global beverage giant Coca-Cola – the chief funder of the initiative and MAC AIDS as well as other partners who are contributing immensely to the fight against HIV/AIDS.

On the impact of a novelty match in combating HIV, the leader of the ex-International who is also a health Ambassador, Emmanuel Hyacinth Babayaro, older brother of former Chelsea and Newcastle United player Celestine Babayaro said:”We are leveraging celebrity advocacy and role modelling to mobilize people because behind every celebrity or role model, there are a thousand and one people who would like to emulate them.

So we have all of them here today for free because they believe in this cause and they want to contribute their quota. Young people came out here today to be tested and get accurate information about HIV/AIDS. Our target this year is to provide free HIV Counselling and Testing to 18,000 persons across 11 states in Nigeria including Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Edo, Enugu, FCT Abuja, Gombe, Imo, Kaduna, Kano, Lagos, and Oyo with a combination of activities including this novelty match. I’m happy to be a part of this.”

In her views, Iwalola Akin-Jimoh the Executive Director of YEF, the novelty match and other activities were important as they serve as ways of reminding the Government, private sector organisations and the general public that HIV has not gone away and that collectively, there is the need to increase awareness, fight prejudice and stigmatization, improve awareness/sensitization channels and develop appropriate funded programmes to maintain the drive towards eradicating the scourge.

The fun-filled novelty match which drew a huge crowd within the Lagos Island environs, including Mr. Ibrahim Umoru, Executive Director, Good Health Educators Initiative and former coordinator, Lagos State Chapter of the Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria, ended 5-3, in favour of ex-internationals who played against celebrities and corporate Nigeria. There was also a celebrity placard display with various messages to raise awareness about HIV as well as o one-minute in respect of those who have died as a result of the dreaded virus.

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At least 500 Nigerians die of HIV/AIDs daily, with an average new infection of 600 people every day, says Sani Aliyu, Director General, National Agency for the Control of AIDs, NACA.

Mr. Aliyu gave the figure during an interview with the Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, about HIV/AIDs, aired on Saturday night.

He said although the country has achieved great heights with the support of government and the international community, a lot of help is still needed from private individuals to address the challenges posed by the existence of HIV/AIDs in Nigeria.

Mr. Aliyu noted that Nigeria is still the second most affected country with HIV/AIDs, globally behind South Africa. He called on government and stakeholders to ensure increased education of the girl child and women empowerment as a means of addressing the challenge.

He added that the global theme for this year’s event to mark the World AIDs day, “Hands up for HIV/AIDs prevention,” was adjusted for Nigeria, to match with the country’s current prevalence rate of 3 per cent.

“You know that for Nigeria the topic for this year is not ‘hands up’; when you say hands up you are giving up. It’s ‘hands on’ for us in Nigeria,” said Mr. Aliyu.

About 72,000 adolescents are reportedly living with HIV in Lagos State, officials have said.

Also according to the Borno State’s coordinator for HIV/AIDs, no fewer than 5,000 Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, in 27 camps in the state are currently living with the virus.

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In September, world leaders pledged nearly US$13 billion to tackle some of the world’s deadliest diseases through the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria. In a time of significant global uncertainty and strife, this was a remarkable display of commitment to the health and well-being of the most vulnerable populations on the planet.

African leaders have committed to ending AIDS, TB and malaria since 2001, and over the past few decades, extraordinary global solidarity and resources have helped transform this fight against Africa’s three biggest public health threats. The Global Fund has been key to this progress, having saved 20 million lives worldwide and averted millions of new infections.

But donor resources are not limitless. In order to build on our progress and accelerate the decline of these diseases, we need to marshal resources and leadership from the countries that, tragically, know them best – many of which are in Africa.

I am all too familiar with the devastating impact of AIDS, TB and malaria on the people of my continent, with hundreds of millions of Africans at risk of these diseases every day. Encouragingly, African governments have taken several important steps to meet the evolving demands of the AIDS, TB and malaria response.

Several African countries committed resources to the Global Fund for its latest replenishment. Pledges from South Africa, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, Togo and Zimbabwe totaled approximately $34 million, demonstrating the importance African countries place on the Global Fund and sharing responsibility for ending these epidemics. As President Macky Sall of Senegal said, “In an interconnected and interdependent world, diseases know no borders.” The African Union Commission commends the countries that contributed, and commits to work with more African countries for increased pledges for the next replenishment in 2018.

Furthermore, these pledges have also been made alongside significant increases in domestic investments for health by African countries, almost US $11 billion for 2015-17. This surge in resources is critical for positioning countries to take ownership over their health programmes and lead the fight against these diseases.

The 54 countries that make up the African Union (AU) understand how important this is, which is why we place special emphasis on identifying African-sourced solutions to our health challenges. For example, in 2012, country governments adopted the African Union Roadmap on Shared Responsibility and Global Solidarity for AIDS, TB and Malaria, which outlined a path for strengthening country leadership on the essential building blocks of our health systems – including the areas of financing and access to medicines. In 2016 African leaders adopted the Catalytic Framework to end AIDS, TB and Malaria in Africa by 2030 with a clear business plan and bold targets.

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The country has begun a pilot study of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) and TasP (Treatment as Prevention). The National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) is spearheading the study. Pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, is a procedure for people who do not have HIV but who are at substantial risk of contracting the virus to prevent HIV infection by taking a pill every day.

The country decided to test run this because globally PrEP and TasP have been proven to have immense positive effects on the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

According to the Director General of NACA, Prof John Idoko, Multiple Studies have established that anti-retroviral drugs could be used to reduce the rate of infection in a population in these two different ways.

He said, “The pill (brand name Truvada) which contains two medicines (tenofovir and emtricitabine) is used in combination with other medicines to treat HIV. When someone is exposed to HIV through sex or injection drug use, these medicines can work to keep the virus from establishing a permanent infection. Treatment as Prevention or TasP, on the other hand, targets people who are already infected with HIV-1, reducing their infectiousness in the population. Multiple studies have established that, after about the first six months of treatment, anti-retroviral therapy (ART) reduces HIV-1 concentrations to undetectable levels in blood plasma and genital compartments.  Additional studies have demonstrated that HIV transmission by an infected person is significantly reduced when that person adheres to ART well enough to maintain viral suppression.”

Prof Idoko clarified that the ongoing study is not being done to determine whether PrEP works or not as it has long been established that PrEP actually works when used in combination with other methods of HIV prevention.

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