WHO, UNICEF, UNAIDS highlight progress in global responseAS Nigerian joins the rest of the world to mark the '2011 World AIDS Day' today, the quest of the Federal Government, through the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), to put more Nigerians living with Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) on its free treatment programme appears to be under threat.Reasons: There is a decline in resources available for HIV prevention and treatment in Nigeria and other low- and middle-income countries. This could be aggravated further by the recently revised resource forecast - showing a shortfall in funding available through the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund).However, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that advances in HIV treatments over the last one-year had raised hopes for future progress.Current publication by WHO, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) on 'Report on the Global HIV/AIDS Response' indicated that increased access to HIV servicesresulted in a 15 per cent reduction of new infections over the past decade and a 22 per cent decline in AIDS-related deaths in the last five years.A statement by Director, HIV Department, WHO, Gottfried Hirnschall, stressed: 'It has taken the world 10 years to achieve this level of momentum. There is now a very real possibility of getting ahead of the epidemic. 'But this can only be achieved by sustaining and accelerating this momentum over the next decade and beyond.'The Global Fund on AIDS has announced plans to replace its next call for country proposals (Round 11) with a new transitional funding mechanism. The new mechanism will focus on the continuation of essential prevention, treatment and care services currently financed by the Global Fund - making new funding available only in 2014.This announcement could jeopardise global efforts to achieve Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 6 - to halt and reverse the spread of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria by 2015.With support from donor funds, NACA is presently treating no fewer than 400,000 Nigerians out of the estimated three million living with the virus. But with the new WHO treatment guidelines, the government is supposed to be treating about 1.5 million Persons Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHA); instead of its initial target of 850,000.
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