No fewer than 4,079 persons were infected with HIV from January to September, the state’s Agency for the Control of HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Leprosy and Malaria, BACATMA, has said.
The Executive Secretary of the agency, Dr. Mansur Dada, who made this known yesterday at a briefing, as part of events to mark the 2017 World AIDS Day with theme Right to Health: Make it Happen, said of the overall number of HIV victims in the state, 247,990 were counselled and tested in 2017.
According to him, the state has a total of 196 HIV counselling and testing sites, 23 anti-retroviral treatment sites and 113 Prevention of Mother-to-Children Transmission sites, PMTCT, in tertiary, secondary and primary health facilities.
Speaking on the achievements of the agency, Dr. Dada said BACATMA has expanded PMTCT/HCT sites to at least one per ward for the 323 wards, between 2015 and 2017, adding that the 113 sites had been expanded to 171, hoping to become fully operational by January 2018.
Other achievements, according to him, include the enactment of anti-discrimination law by Bauchi State House of Assembly and premarital screening for HIV and HB Genotype, establishment of state-of-the-art monitoring and evaluation unit at BACATMA and development of Bauchi State HIV/AIDs Response Strategic plan 2017-2021, among others.
