Convinced that the present prevalence rate of Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in Taraba state has dropped from 10.5 per cent to one digit, the Taraba state AIDS Control Agency (TACA) has challenged the National HIV/AIDS and Reproduction Health Survey (NARHS) on the need to conduct fresh survey to ascertain the current status of the viral disease in the country.

The 2012 NARHS-PLUS report indicated that Taraba state has a prevalence r of 10.5 per cent second highest in the country.

Certain that the numerous interventions embarked on by the state government and the agency have yielded positive results, the Director General of the Agency, Abba Saleh Ibrahim, believed that the prevalence of the state must have drastically dropped.
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Ibrahim who made this known Monday, in Jalingo at the opening of tender bids for the supply of furniture and equipment for the new TACA office located at the state secretariat complex, said the action would further reduce the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the state.

According to him “because of the interventions across the state, our prevalence rate, I am convinced would dropped from 10.5% to one digit when next the NARHS carry out their survey.

Calling on the NARHS to as a matter of urgency fashion out ways of embarking on a fresh survey, the intervention carried out by the agency in collaboration the state government in all the 36 treatment centers, he said are enough evidence that the epidemic has been brought under control in the state.

Ibrahim noted that “Taraba state has a prevalence of 10.5 per cent second highest in the country ” adding that the situation “placed our state above national average of 3.4 per cent”.

Noting “all of are either infected by HIV or affected by HIV/AIDS in one way or the other, the state government, as made known by him, has constructed “a befitting office accommodation for the agency.”