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The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated US $25 million to help fight HIV/AIDS in Nigeria.
The money will go to the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the Harvard Center for International Development, the foundation said on Tuesday.
The Nigerian AIDS Prevention Initiative will begin by profiling the nature of HIV infection in the country, followed by prevention programmes such as those successfully carried out in Senegal for many years. Infection rates there have remained stable at 2 percent.
The foundation noted that one out of six Africans is a Nigerian, the country has at least 113 million people and HIV/AIDS prevalence is still very low.
“This is our opportunity to help a great many people stay healthy,” HSPH Dean Barry Bloom said. “The object, based on our experience in Senegal, is to prevent infection from getting to the level of 25 (percent) to 30 percent as in other African nations.”
He said key questions exist in Nigeria regarding sources of infection, routes of transmission, high risk populations and the best strategies to contain the epidemic.
The aim is to work with counterparts in the government and nongovernmental organisations in two Nigerian states to set up a pilot project for learning how to control the disease. The two states will be selected with input from a Nigerian advisory council.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions