Nigeria has several favorable circumstances that improve its chances
for success
in its struggle to combat HIV/AIDS.

Stopping the HIV epidemic would require the country’s leadership,
citizens and
international partners to continue mobilizing quickly around a
prevention-centered
strategy that intensively and effectively addressed the core activities
driving
the epidemic. Included female sex workers.

A large-scale prevention effort targeting youth in both rural and urban
settings
should also be launched. We have National Youth Network on HIV/AIDS
(NYNETHA) and Association of Positive Youths in Nigeria (APYIN). Since
the
formation of the two networks, they have never received any financial
support to
address the issue that concerns them.

Nigeria will have to overcome significant barriers such as pervasive
stigma and
discrimination, lack of a national legal framework and legal remedies
to limit
discrimination and ensure of confidentiality; prevention, care and
treatment;
and failure to support youths networks.

I am suggesting that it is essential that top political leadership and
ministerial officials should become more directly engaged in trying to
control
HIV/AIDS, in resolving difficult and enduring policy issues and in
directing
a truly multi-sector approach.

Only high-level national leadership can effectively confront the deep
stigma
that surrounds HIV/AIDS and the high-risk behaviors at the center of
the
epidemic.