88,211 persons place on Anti retro viral drug in Benue within two months

Benue State Commissioner for Health, Dr Cecilia Ojabo has said that 88,211 persons have been placed on Anti retro viral drug in the state in the last two months.

Dr Ojabo disclosed this at the ministerial briefing organised by Benue State council of Nigerian Union of Journalist, NUJ in Makurdi, Benue State capital.

Following the new figure, the commissioner said that the total number of persons placed on ART has moved up to 588,190 persons.

Ojabo said, ‘a lot of achievements have been recorded at different levels of coverage which include, ‘number of pregnant women on PMTCT improved to 9,105 among the 42,240 HIV positive pregnant women”.

“Total number of persons placed on ART (499,979 in 2016 increased by 88,211 (total now is 588,190 in 2017).”

As a result of this, the commissioner said that the number of HIV Testing Service HTS has scaled up with HCT sites from 163 in 2015 to 619 in 2017.

She added that the centers to access ART which used to be 168 has moved to 496 sites.

She added that the ministry distributed 486,000 doses of Anti retro viral drugs and 526,700 doses of drugs for opportunistic infections.

Speaking further, the commissioner said that the ministry distributed 1,402,000 Rapid Diagnostic Tests Kits and 1,260,000 Acetamine Combination Therapy routinely in health facilities to mothers and children.

Dr Ojabo further explained that the ministry distributed 3.5 million insecticides treated mosquito nets which she said valued at N3.5m.