Nigeria says 50,000 AIDS patients now on ARV therapy

By Tume Ahemba

LAGOS (Reuters) – The number of Nigerians living with
HIV/AIDS who are receiving subsidized life-saving drugs has
risen five-fold to about 50,000 in three years, a government
anti-AIDS body said on Tuesday.

A treatment program launched by the government in 2002 was
nearly crippled by funding problems last year, but it was
revived by an inflow of cash from donors including the United
States, the Global AIDS Fund and the Nigerian private sector.

“We reckon that about 50,000 infected people are now
receiving anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment nationwide,”
Babatunde Osotimehin, chairman of the National Action Committee
Against AIDS (NACA), told Reuters.

Around 14,000 people are on the federal government program,
17,000 are being treated with the assistance from the Global
Fund, and 10,000 by the U.S. AIDS relief program, while the
remainder are supported by state governments and the private
sector, he added.

Osotimehin said Nigeria was on course to achieve a target
of extending the therapy to 250,000 Nigerians by next year,
although he said the necessary funds were still not in place.

“We are optimistic of achieving the target. We are already
working with our partners and also reaching out to raise more
resources to meet the target by 2006,” Osotimehin said.

But groups campaigning for greater access to treatment for
the 3.5 million Nigerians infected with the virus said the
number of people on ARVs was far lower.

“I don’t think the number of people on ARVs is as high as
NACA claims. The number should be around 30,000, even with the
(U.S. President George) Bush initiative,” said Pat Matemilola,
national coordinator of the Network of People Living with

HIV/AIDS.

DRUGS COCKTAIL

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, launched an
ambitious anti-AIDS program in 2002 with an initial target of
providing subsidized drugs from India to 10,000 adults and
5,000 children.

The cocktail of drugs costs 7,000-10,000 naira per patient
per month on the open market, far above the purchasing power of
the average Nigerian, while the subsidized rate is 1,000 naira
per patient.

ARV prices have been falling since a new Nigerian ARV pill
factory owned by local firm Fidson Healthcare Ltd began
production in May.

Nigeria is the world’s eighth largest oil exporter, but two
thirds of its 140 million people live on less than a dollar a
day. The quality of health care has fallen dramatically over
the last two decades.

Campaigners argue that many Nigerians living with the virus
are too poor to afford even the subsidized cost and have
interrupted their treatment, building resistance to the pills.

About one in every 11 adults living with the HIV virus in
the world is a Nigerian, and one out of 13 new infections
happen in the West African country, health officials said.