Lagos state Commissioner for Health Dr. Jide Idri

Lagos, May 5, 2018 (AltAfrika)-Lagos State Government on Friday said about 67, 763 persons living with HIV are currently on full treatment care in the state as against the 64, 000 it had as of June last year

The state Commissioner for Health Dr. Jide Idris who revealed this at the on-going ministerial briefing in Lagos Statealso revealed that the state’s Malaria, HIV and Tuberculosis programmes have been very effective.

Idris said 64,000 doses of oral anti-malarial and 10,000 doses of injectable Artesunate were procured and distributed across the state.

He said, ‘’The program has been able to place and retain 67,763 HIV positive persons on treatment care and support across the state out of which 1,989 persons are on treatment in three  Global Fund supported LGAs (Ikorodu, Oshodi-Isolo and Epe) as at December 2017. The above achievement has earned the State GF supported HIV Control program an extension period of implementation of eighteen (18) months.

“The program had been able to counsel, test and give results to 1,125,939 persons. The State has been able to scale up Provider-Initiated Testing and Counselling (PITC), Option B+ for pregnant women and test and start strategies in government tertiary, secondary and primary health facilities.’’

The commissioner added that the state had been able to scale up Anti Retro Viral Therapy from 44 sites to 65 sites, adding that they also upgraded 10 per cent of its Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) sites with optimization of services from Option B to Option B+.

He explained that 2017, Lagos became the first Sub-National Government in all countries in the world to be appointed as a Principal Recipient by the Global Fund towards the implementation of comprehensive HIV Prevention, Treatment, Care and Support program across 70 health facilities in the 3 LGAs of Epe, Ikorodu and OshodI Isolo.

According to him, ‘’the key objectives of the grant are to among others reduce new HIV infections, and improve the quality of life for the infected, affected, and to place 10,337 number of PLHIVs on treatment of which 3876 are children. ‘’Provide people living in Epe, Ikorodu and OshodI Isolo LGAs with universal access to high-quality, patient-centered prevention, diagnosis, and treatment services for TB/HIV by 2017. Contribute towards achieving HIV epidemic control in Epe, Ikorodu and Oshodi/Isolo LGAs by year the 2020 with Epidemic control defined as ART coverage of at least 80 per cent.