HIV/AIDS Interventions in Gombe State Nigeria; Challenges of Sustaining the Gains

Gombe state in north east Nigeria is one of the states that have benefitted immensely from International donor agency interventions in HIV/AIDS control programme in Nigeria. The intervention areas include prevention of the spread of the disease, capacity building for the control of the disease, free HIV/AIDS test and counselling, prevention of mother to child transmission, treatment and support to people living with the virus and provision of technical equipments and reagents for laboratory analysis among others. As this international donor support interventions approaches the end of its programme in the state, the challenge is how to sustain the effort so far made in the control of HIV/AIDS in the state. Cross sectional survey was used in generating data for this study. The findings of the study show that the Gombe state government through collaboration with their international support partners have been able to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS in the state from 8.2% in 2001 to 3.2% in 2016. The study shows that about 225,226 have benefitted from voluntary HIV/AIDS counselling and test (131,133 women, 3,852 couples and 126,162 clients). There are about 46,670 persons enrolled into HIV/AIDS support care since inception of the programme in 2006 to date and 25,781 on treatment and care. The study findings show that despite the gains so far made in reducing the spread of the disease in the state, optimum prevention returns on the fight against HIV/AIDS is rather low. The study shows that HIV/AIDS control and support services require huge capital and human resources that are far beyond the normal state budget. Based on the findings, the study recommends the need for the state government to be more proactive by taking ownership of the problem of HIV/AIDS, increase funding and maximize all resources available for HIV/AIDS control activities in the state.