Abel Leonard, Lafia

The Nasarawa State Government has assured the people of the state of its readiness in eradicating HIV and AIDS in the state before the year 2030.

Governor Abdullahi Sule gave the assurance while commissioning the office of National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), North Central zonal office, Lafia on Monday.

According to him, “we are also aware that about 20,000 people are HIV positive but are not on treatment.

“Thank God, about two weeks ago that we launched the surge search, the CEO of NACA told us that the prevalence has started reducing and about 200 people are now coming in and are being placed on treatment every week.

“This is the fight that involves everyone and being an all-inclusive project, the government would always live up to its responsibilities to making sure of eradicating HIV before 2030,” he stated.

The Governor, who was represented by his Deputy, Emmanuel Akabe, added that administration will do all it could to support the NACA office in Lafia to succeed in the fight against HIV in the state and the nation at large.

On his part, the Director-General NACA, Gambo Aliyu, said their presence in Nasarawa state and in particular the entire North Central states, is to work with all communities in the state with the view of eliminating HIV in Nigeria.

He, however, thanked the Nasarawa state Governor, for supporting NACA in the fight against the epidemic whose prevalence rate now reduced to 1.9m people against the 3.5 previous rates.

The NACA office which was commissioned in Lafia is the head office of the North Central states including the Federal Capital Abuja.