Update

There is a consensus among political leaders, civil society and development partners that ending AIDS as a public health threat in Nigeria will require increased domestic funding.

In the past 10 years, Nigeria has made progress in its AIDS response. The number of people living with HIV on life-saving antiretroviral therapy in the country grew to more than one million by mid-2017. AIDS-related deaths have been reduced from 210 000 in 2006 to fewer than 160 000 in 2016. Although only 30% of people living with HIV in Nigeria are now on treatment, 81% of people on treatment are virally suppressed.

According to the Society for Family Health, Nigeria, spending on the AIDS response in Nigeria increased from US$ 300 million in 2007 to US$ 730 million in 2013. But the AIDS response has been largely sustained through external funding, especially from the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

In order to increase domestic funding for the AIDS response, efforts are under way for each of Nigeria’s 36 states to contribute up to 1% of their monthly allocations from the federal government to the response to HIV. The Government of Nigeria, with technical support from UNAIDS and the World Health Organization, is also establishing an HIV trust fund aimed at increasing private sector contributions from 2.1% in 2014 to 10% by the end of 2018.

Increases in domestic funding will boost efforts to diagnose the estimated two million people living with HIV in Nigeria who do not know their HIV status and are not yet on treatment. In December 2016, the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, launched a Fast-Track plan using domestic resources to maintain 60 000 people living with HIV on HIV treatment and to ensure that an additional 50 000 people access treatment each year.