KADUNA—Kaduna State Government yesterday said HIV/AIDS cases in the state had dropped from 9% to 0.2% in the past one year, making it the leading state in the control of the dreaded virus.

Gov. Nasir-El-Rufai
At a briefing, Commissioner for Health, Professor Andrew Nok, also said there was no single case of Lassa fever in the state after three persons were treated of disease last year.

He said: “Kaduna State has been adjudged the best state in the test of HIV/AIDS in the country. This has earned the state two consecutive United Nations AIDS test awards. We won first prize in the first round of Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, MNCH, Week because we were able to test 84,000 pregnant women from 12 of the 23 local government areas of Kaduna State.
“For the second round, we expanded to all the 23 LGAs, and successfully screened 126,398 pregnant women in five days.”
Nok, said the latest result showed that the prevalence had dropped to 0.02%, which he said was a huge relief from the previous 9% claimed for the state earlier.
According to him, the Barau Dikko Specialist Hospital, Kaduna had now been upgraded to become Kaduna State University Teaching Hospital.
He said: “We are upgrading the Barau Dikko Specialist Hospital to have all the ultra-modern facilities that a functional modern Teaching Hospitals has. This is necessary if we must retain the accreditation or Medical Faculty that has been given by the Nigerian University Commission.”
The commissioner also explained that because of the scourging diseases like Kidney failures and other forms of renal diseases, the cost also of trying to manage patients with kidney diseases, eight Dialysis Machines were purchased.
“I want to assure you that there is no single of Laser fever in Kaduna state since the last infected three persons were treated and discharged last year. We have carried out very meticulous work on the problem, guaranteeing and testing all that had come in contact with sufferers of the diseases. It was a very expensive venture, and today we a free of Lassa fever,” said Nok.

Good development... I Hope other states learn frm them