HIV/Tuberculosis: NACA Moves To Close Service Gap Among Children

The director-general of NACA, Dr Aliyu Gambo, who stated this in Abuja, during the National Paediatric HIV, TB Consultative Meeting, regretted that children are left behind in the fight against HIV as 63 per of cent of the 150,000 children living with HIV in the country do not have access to life saving antiretroviral therapy.“About 21,000 children were newly infected with HIV in 2020 and 13,000 deaths occurred within the same period. The final vertical transmission of HIV, including during breastfeeding, is 22 per cent, he said.

He also expressed worry that TB case finding among children in the country is low at seven per cent and the coverage for tuberculosis preventive therapy is only 12 per cent amongst children less than five years who are household contacts of confirmed TB cases.

Gambo noted that TB is a leading cause of death among people living with HIV globally and in Nigeria, adding that children are not excluded.

According to him, “Nigeria has one of the highest burdens of TB with an incidence of 216 per 100,000 population. The HIV positive TB incidence in Nigeria is 17 per 100,000 with a mortality of 13 per 100,000 among the coinfected.

The chief of health, UNICEF, Dr. Eduardo Celades, said the meeting was very timely as it demonstrates the sense of urgency by the government of Nigeria to initiate “a call to action” and to mobilise the whole of government key multi-stakeholders including faith-based organisations, civil society and the private sector to eliminate paediatric TB and to end the AIDS epidemic among children.