WorldStage Newsonline– The National Agency for Control of AIDS (NACA) has launch the 2023 Key Population Size Estimation (KPSE) that provides a better understanding of the epidemic, mode of HIV transmission, the key populations (KP), female sex workers (FSW), men who have sex with men (MSM), people who inject drugs (PWID), and transgender (TG) people as key drivers of the virus.
The KPSE report conducted in 20 selected states, also identifies physical and virtual venues, hotspot where sexual networking and injecting drug practices occurred, the gap in HIV prevention services for key populations at the various hotspots.
The Director General, NACA, Dr. Gambo Aliyu at the unveiling of ‘2023 KPSE report’ on Wednesday in Abuja, said the KPSE, which provide information on the hotspots of the epidemic, and other surveys and research, will provide robust evidence to guide stakeholders designing and implementing appropriate strategies and interventions towards the reversal of the HIV epidemic in Nigeria.
He said, “What the KPSE entails is that we want to know how many of them we have in the country and were they are located so that we can reach out to them and provide them with services.
“They are very important group, and they are very important population for controlling HIV. If you don’t engage them and if you don’t work with them it will be hard for you to control HIV in the country, so that is why we are doing this today.
On the restriction of the KPSE to only 20 states, the NACA Director General, lamented on the challenge of funding, “we had money for only 20 states, so we do in only 20 states, now we are looking for money to do in the rest of the states.”
The selected states for KPSE include, Adamawa, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Borno, Delta, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Jigawa, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Ogun, Osun, Plateau, Sokoto, Yobe, and Zamfara.
According to the report, estimate of KP varied across the 20 states, Delta had the higest number of FSWs (27,862), Katsina of MSM (11,145) and TG (9,457). Zamfara had the higest number of PWID (15,772), while the lowest numbers were observed in Ekiti for (3,628), Yobe for MSM (721), Bayelsa for PWID (1,923), Kwaar for TG (849).
