DR. Patrick Dakum, CEO, Institute of Human Virology, Nigeria (IHVN), has said state governments were not doing enough to complement Federal Government’s efforts in mitigating the impact of HIV and other infectious diseases.
Dakum said this on Thursday in Lagos during an interview with the newsmen on the sideline of the institute’s five-year strategic planning meeting.
He said the Federal Government had shown an appreciable level of commitment in addressing HIV, Tuberculosis and malaria challenge.
He said unfortunately, the same could not be said of many state governments in the country.
“I want to commend the Federal Government in the area of HIV for taking a decision to increase funding for HIV by creating the President’s comprehensive response plan.
“The plan is hinged on having about 40 per cent of the funding required which is about N140 billion coming from the states.
“We have seen some contribution in terms of that with the Federal Government has done but we cannot really quantify the funding coming from the states.
“If the Federal Government has done that what is the contribution of the state governments on the same issue,’’ Dakum said.
He said that apart from the funding gaps and weak commitment from some state actors, complacency had slowed down HIV intervention in the country.
According to him many people do not consider HIV a major health problem as was the case in the past.
He said HIV intervention efforts had to contend with new infections and the burden of those yet to be placed on treatment.
Dakum said weak infrastructure and dearth of professionals in the health sector were also challenges facing the implementation of health programmes.
“You cannot lay a programme on a weak infrastructure.
“As we try to do programmes in HIV, TB, Malaria and also non-communicable diseases, one of the areas that we need to pay attention is to ensure that there is adequate infrastructure.
“The other problem embedded in infrastructure is capacity development. Given our population growth to what extent have we grown the number of doctors and nurses,’’ he said.
