‘USAID spends $700m fighting HIV/AIDS in Nigeria’
The United State Agency for International Development, (USAID), says it has committed about $700 million to combat Aids-Hiv in Nigeria. The Director of the organization, Mr. Michael Harvey disclosed this on Wednesday, when he paid a courtesy call to the Minister of Budget and national Planning, Sen. Udo Udoma Mr. Harvey assured that USAID would support Nigeria in its plan to ensure local production of HIV-Aids drugs in the country “Our Agency will for sure support the local pharmaceutical production of HIV-Aids drugs in Nigeria and this will benefit Nigeria for there is huge market for the drug,” he added. The USAID boss, further called on Nigerian government to increase it’s counterpart funding to address the health scourge in the country particularly in the North Eastern part of the country. Responding, the minister while seeking for more assistance from donor agencies, commended USAID and other international donor agencies for their numerous assistance to Nigeria. “Government is grateful to all past assistance to our health, education, and agricultural sector from European Union, USAID, UNICEF, World Bank etc. As a new government, we have inherited difficult circumstances, we need more assistance especially support in our Infrastructure like the power sector,” said Udoma. He noted that one of the biggest challenges of the present administration is to attract more foreign and private investment into the economy and promised to provide the enabling environment.