Nigerian Government Hopes To Provide Low-Cost Antiretroviral Drugs to 100,000 People This Year
Nigerian Health Minister Eyitayo Lambo on Wednesday announced that the government plans to expand its antiretroviral drug program to provide low-cost drugs to 100,000 HIV-positive people by the end of this year, Reuters reports. Nigeria in 2002 launched a program to provide antiretroviral drugs to HIV-positive people in the nation at a cost of about $7 per person per month. However, because of financial shortfalls, only about 14,000 people of an estimated 3.5 million HIV-positive people in the country currently receive the drugs at the government's 25 HIV/AIDS treatment centers. According to Lambo, the program expansion will be funded in part by a grant from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Reuters, 2/24). Lambo said the government hopes to enroll 350,000 people in the antiretroviral drug program by 2007, AFP/Yahoo! News reports. Approximately 5% of Nigerian adults are HIV-positive, according to AFP/Yahoo! News (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2/23).
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