The Director General of Cross River State Primary
Healthcare Development Agency, Dr Betta Edu during the transition meeting of
Cross River State SHiPs for MARPs program with key stakeholders said on behalf
of the Executive Governor, Senator (Prof) Ben Ayade and the Honorable
Commissioner for Health Dr Inyang Asibong she commends the Cross River State
SHIPS for MARPS program of Society for Family
Health (SFH) for their assistance to the State towards achieving global target
of 90.90.90.
She noted that at some point Cross River State had the
2nd Highest prevalence of HIV AIDS in Nigeria, but she is happy that now CRS is
nowhere around the first 5
Dr Edu said the interesting part of
the program is the fact that it is a community base program because some
persons will never come to the health centers to test for HIV except we meet
them wherever they are, the churches, the market square, houses and where they
are comfortable living their normally lives.
According to her the program pays
attention to groups which society does not embrace like gay, prostitute and
drug abusers. She noted that if these groups were not consciously targeted, the
state HIV program would not have attained it set target.
She thanked them for introducing
treatment as part of prevention by working successfully with FHI360 to ensure
it works.
Finally she said that the
Government of CRS will not relent in it's effort til the day we have a
generation free of HIV. We hope Heartland Alliance who will be taking over the
structure form SFH, will surpass what they have done already.
Earlier Speaking, the Mr Egbe Awa ,
Technical Program officer noted that Cross River State SHiPs for MARPS program
was carefully mapped out and a realistic steps taken to ensure it targeted
special people to reduce HIV prevalence .
Dr Ngozi Noel-Ogamba said the team
will be meeting with the Honourable Commissioner for health and the entire
state team to officially hand over what they have achieved in the State for
sustainability and supportive supervision of their projects even though a new
partner will continue from where they stop.
Present at the meeting were
stakeholders drawn from across the State and representatives of the State
Ministry of Health as well as the Cross River State Primary Health Care Development
Agency.
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