The coordinator Rivers State Action committee on Aids (RIVSACA), Dr. Chimerem Okay has asked HIV/AIDs care givers to be friendly, hospitable and show empathy as stigma kills even more than Aids.
Chimerem told news men in his office on Monday 1st December, 2014 that the agency has sent testers to all the 23 local government areas of the state and asked the people to make proper use of the opportunity.
According to Dr. Chimerem the agency has what it takes to fight Aids, rolled out basic things that must be in place to do the fight as sustainable programmes, infrastructures, resource among others.
According to him, awareness is on a very high level that even those living in remote areas are aware of Aids existence, estimating that over 98% of persons living in the state are aware of HIV/AIDS.
Having created awareness he said the agency is very keen on testing, saying that 20 treatment sites are now available pointed out that special services have been given to some groups that are too vulnerable to the scourge, like women who are commercial sex workers, homosexuals and those who inject drugs.
Special attention and service he said are equally given to pregnant women to prevent the scourge from remitting mother to child.
While given statistical figure of the affected persons in the state to about 145,000 he confessed that WHO reported that this figure can not be true as ratio of 1 to 50 person stands the risk of the country and that about 40% of Nigerians who are affected are ignorant, concluded that hence the agency embarks on testing which has taken them over a year to discover the real affected persons and hand them over to care and treatment centre.
Dr. Chimerem however, debunked the speculations that the presence of the RIVSACA is mostly felt on the upland than in the riverine areas. ###
Mene Gbarabe
