31,000 People Living With HIV In Osun – ECEWS

A total of 31,000 people are said to be living with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in Osun State. 

This was disclosed by Excellence Community Education Welfare Scheme (ECEWS), a non-governmental organisation that promotes access to qualitative healthcare. 

ECEWS partners with the state government to provide treatment and sensitise people on ways to prevent the virus.

Speaking with OSUN DEFENDER on Tuesday, a Senior Technical Officer of ECEWS, Mr Adebayo Akinmoladun, noted some of the people with the virus have not come up to seek medical assistance.

Akinmoladun stated that the organisation was working with the state government to reduce the risk of residents contacting the virus. 

He said: “According to the 2018 surveillance that was done, Osun State is 1.9 per cent and today, it translates to 31,000 people estimated to be living with HIV in Osun State. That is what statistics has told us.

“One of the goals of our organisation is to ensure treatment saturation and take treatment to all those who are infected and find those who are not yet on treatment and place them on treatment.

“We also try as much as possible to ensure that those who are not infected did not contact the virus by giving packages of prevention services to the general population. 

“As we are going to the community to test people, we also sensitise people on the best practices to avoid the virus and by so doing, we will be able to keep the infection at a controlled rate and eliminate HIV in Osun State.

“We work with the state ministry of health. We are supporting what the state is doing to help people with the virus and it has been a fruitful collaboration.”