The Minister of Health, Onyebuchi Chukwu, has stated that Nigeria needs to do away with reliance on donor funding of HIV/AIDS campaign and use the country’s resources to fight the scourge.

The Minister, who made the suggestion at a meeting on the president’s emergency response plan for HIV/AIDS in Abuja, warned that a substantial part of national investment in the management of the disease comes from donor agencies, this he claims, poses a grave risk to the nation.

Mr Chukwu emphasised the need for a quick reversal of this trend to involve more states and improve access to treatment and prevention services for the 500,000 people who are most at risk.

The president’s emergency plan would not only look at the inflow of funds but how efficiently it is handled. According to the Director-General of National Agency For Control of AIDS (NACA), John Idoko, the nation currently requires an investment of about N77.6billion to tackle this threat.

He also revealed that out of about 170million Nigerians, only 3million people get tested every year and the rest do not know their HIV status.

He stated that the HIV prevalence rate among adults between 15 and 49 in Nigeria is 0.9percent.

Another major concern raised by the Minister is the abysmal number of women in the rural communities who receive HIV/AIDS intervention as rural communities remain the area most heavily affected by the epidemic, cutting food production and threatening millions of lives.

He was however optimistic that by 2012, the nation should be treating 1.2 million out of 1.5million people. The presidency has thereby promised to scale-up services and far-reaching support to communities at greater risk of the epidemic.