According to UNAIDS and the National Agency for the Control of AIDS, 1.9 million people are infected with HIV in Nigeria. The Nigerian president recently published their updated strategy on HIV and AIDs, aiming to end the epidemic by 2030 (UNAIDS, March 2019).
Health[e]Foundation contributes by training doctors, nurses, pharmacists, counselors and other healthcare workers on the prevention and treatment of HIV in the HIV Treat’n Care[e]Education course. In March, 86% of the 110 participants that started the course in Kano and Zaria in November 2018 passed their online e-learning and received their certificate during a two-day follow up workshop and we expect the others still to finish successfully as well.
At the follow up workshops, the highly motivated participants learned more from lectures given by experts in the field, activities and discussions. Especially HIV & TB co-infections, mental health for patients with HIV and adherence were topics of interest to the participants. One of the participants stated, after attending the workshops: ‘I learned the role we all play as healthcare workers in ensuring adherence to antiretroviral therapy in achieving the global goal of combating HIV/AIDS’.
We thank Janssen, Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, for enabling Health[e]Foundation to train these 110 healthcare workers in Nigeria. As one of the participants said: ‘Thank you for the golden opportunity to learn’. Furthermore, we appreciate all the support from Prof. Abdulrazaq Habib and Dr. Muhammad Hamza from the Bayero University of Kano and Dr. Mohammed Abdullahi of the Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria.
