Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa with a population of about 200 million people have been noted to have very high Human Immunodeficiency Virus, HIV, burdens along with 12 other African countries, the World Health Organisation, WHO, disclosed.
The twelve other countries are: Angola, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kenya. Others are, Mozambique, South Africa, the United Republic of Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Who, in a statement revealed that these countries have formed an alliance to end the HIV scourge ravaging over 160,000 children in Africa by the year 2030.
“Currently, around the world, a child dies from AIDS-related causes every five minutes,” the statement read.
It explained that only half (52 per cent) of children living with HIV are on life-saving treatment, far behind adults of whom three quarters (76 per cent) are receiving antiretrovirals.
The statement lamented that children accounted for 15 per cent of all AIDS-related deaths, despite the fact that only four per cent of the total number of people living with HIV are children.
Dr Ghebreyesus said that more than 40 years since AIDS first emerged, WHO has come a long way in preventing infections among children and increasing access to treatment, saying that progress has stalled.