More than 1,000 people living with the HIV and AIDS now access services at the Gwgwalada Town Clinic, Mr Mohammed Labaran, the Coordinator of the centre said on Wednesday.
Labaran told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja that such services included access to drugs, medication, testing and counseling, and other forms of support. According to him, the HIV and AIDS team in the council usually have monthly meeting with those living with the virus in order to assist them with their various challenges.
“Also, during the meeting, we provide them with transportation, and other nutritional food like beverages, blood tonic among others,” he said. He also said that those people living with the virus, who accessed its services, were not only from Gwagwalada Area Council, adding that some of them were from neighbouring communities.
“People are coming from different directions even the neighbouring state sharing boarders with the FCT,” he said. The coordinator also said that its services and programmes were supported by the Institute of Human Virology in the country.
According to him, the council is not given enough support to the team and those living with HIV and AIDS in the area. Labaran, therefore, called on the FCT to establish a budget line for each area council to support the programme.
He said that if the budget line was established, it would go a long way in facilitating the achievement of the target goal. This he said would ensure zero new infection, discrimination, and HIV and AIDS related death in the country by 2015. The coordinator said that its major challenge was paucity of funds to implement some of its programmes.
Labaran said that the team needed operational vehicles to enable it work effectively in the council in order to achieve some of its objectives. He, therefore, called on the FCT administration to provide logistics to the teams to enhance effective implementation of its programme. (NAN)