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Impact Of Hiv In Nigeria

Decent Essays

With an estimated population of 186.5 million (PRB 2016) and an HIV prevalence of 3.4% (FMoH 2013), HIV/AIDS continues to be a major public health concern in Nigeria. Recent estimates indicate that the annual number of new infections in the country has been on a steady decline, decreasing from 288,870 in 2009 to 220,394 in 2013 (NACA 2014). Nigeria’s epidemic is generalized, with wide variations in HIV prevalence within the country, across age groups, and population sub-groups. Across age groups, the national HIV prevalence ranges from 2.9% (15-19 years) to 4.4% (35-39 years). Geographically, the HIV prevalence is highest in the South-South zone (5.5%) and lowest in the South-East Zone (1.8%) (FMoH 2013).
A significant proportion of new …show more content…

Geographically, the HIV prevalence varied by states and ranged from 11.3% in Cross River to as high as 41.3% in Lagos (FMoH 2010a) and by age group 12.4% (15-19 years) to 32.3 (25-49 years). The vulnerability of interventions targeted at MSM is exacerbated by culture, religion, political-will (Allman , et al. 2007) and criminalization of same sex practices (Federal Republic of Nigeria 1990, National Assembly 2011) that exist and make them a hard-to-reach population. Besides, factors such as poverty, stigma and discrimination, lack of involvement of MSM in 
program planning and implementation, illiteracy, lack of social support, violence indirectly contributes to HIV/AIDS transmission or prevent desired changes from occurring at the individual, structural, community, and national level (Measure Evaluation 2011). Similarly, multiple concurrent partnerships, transactional sex, lack of effective services for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), poor quality of health services, and high risk sexual practices (Stromdahl, et al. 2012, UNAIDS 2011) also increase the vulnerability to HIV.
Since 2007, findings from IBBSS study sparked the interest of stakeholders on the existence of MSM and provided evidence to justify the need for the development of HIV programming for key

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