The National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) has recently launched a strategy aimed at tackling the increasing rate of HIV/AIDS pandemic among adolescents and young people in Nigeria.
Director General of the agency, Prof. John Idoko said over a third of Nigeria’s population are young people and quite a proportion of them have HIV but are not aware of it.
Represented by the deputy director, programme coordination of the agency, Dr Priscilla Ibekwe, he said that HIV/AIDS knowledge among this group is less than 25 percent, adding that this is a clear evidence to develop a strategy that is focused on them, having realized that in the past some of the services delivered to the adults are not suitable for young people.
In her remarks, Dr. Victoria Iturame, an HIV specialist with the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) said the adolescents who include persons between the ages of 10 to 24 years old are most hit by the HIV/Aids pandemic globally.
The secretary of the National Youth Network on HIV/AIDS (NYNETHA), Moses Opera, said the central benefit of the document is that they will have the bible to work with young people when it comes to the issues of HIV/AIDS
