The House of Representatives Committee on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Control (ATM), Wednesday, said the committee will Partner the national Agency for the Control of Aids (NACA), to reduce to the barest minimum the spread of the disease, especially, the menace of mother – to- child transmission .
Representative Amobi Ogah, Chairman, Committee on HIV/AIDS,Tuberculosis and Malaria Control (ATM), and members of the committee were on a familiarization visit to the agency, to establish a favourable working relationship, in a bid to stamp out or reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS Pandemic.
Amobi said ” we are here to have a first hand knowledge on the workings of the agency, success and prospect for the future. The House Committee on ATM is ready to support NACA with Legislative measures and interventions that will greatly impact the agency’s capacity to effectively deliver on our mandate.
” We are also aware of the targets to eliminate transmission of HIV/AIDS by year 2030. In order to end the spread of Aids as a public health threat, the government of president Muhammadu Buhari launched a sixty-two billion naira trust fund on February third, 2022. As a committee, we are going to interface with the fund to find out what has been done so far. We are also going to critically look into the global fund of over four billion Dollars invested annually to know what happened to the fund”.
The Director General of the National Agency for the Control of Aids (NACA), Dr. Aliyu Gambo, on his part, noted that “NACA has been working for well over fifteen years, partnering with donor agencies, which has made it possible to successfully increase the number of patients being treated for HIV/AIDS from two- hundred thousand to 1.6 million nationwide. According to our survey, we have over 1.8 million to 1.9 million people living with Aids”
The DG, NACA, said aids no longer kills. He, however, appealed to people to go for test. He disclosed that one can self test, and not necessarily go to the hospital first. He appealed for increased budgetary allocation to the agency for effective service delivery.
The committee members were conducted round the building of NACA and its facilities, where the DG and some officials of the agency fielded questions from members on available data on AIDS patients and treatment, and the states with most prevalent case of HIV/AIDS
The committee also visited the National Malaria Elimination programme (NMEP) as well as the National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Control Programme (NYBLCP). Members of the committee went berserk at the level of deterioration at the two centers. Chairman of the committee, Honorable Amobi Ogah, said “MDAs condemn politicians as embezzlers of public funds. From what we have seen today,NYBLCP is worst than a motor park; and at NMEP, there is absolute disregard for the National Assembly. We are going to take action and these MDAs must do their jobs”.
The committee chairman, who was infuriated by the level of facility decay, the agencies’ cold feet treatment and reception of ATM, absenteeism, amongst other misconducts, vowed to ensure compliance of the agencies on the committee’s plans for health institutions in the country.
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