From Jude Owuamanam, Jos
Advocates in the treatment and eradication of AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (ATM Network) have called on the Plateau State government to prioritise recruitment of staff and funding in the health sector to improve service delivery.
They also want government to increase funding of treatment of AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and tackle poverty, as the co-infection and prevalence of the three deadly diseases can exacerbate the severity of each disease and increase transmission risk.
Speaking at Global Fund Grant Cycle 7 COVID 19 Response Mechanism Project (GF7 C19RM) second Biannual Media Round Table Meeting in Jos, the Plateau State Programme Officer, Global Fund/NACA C19 Response Mechanism Project, Peter Ezekiel, Plateau TB Eradication Coordinator, Daniel Mancha and Representative of the Coordinator Plateau State Agency for the Control of AIDS (PLACA), Dr Joy Inuwa Jamaika said that government intervention and complementarity in the work of the ATM and community based organisations (CBOs) can help in tackling the menace posed by the diseases.
Ezekiel said that in the last five years, a lot of caregivers have retired in the state civil service thereby hampering the work of primary health centres (PHCs) in the state.
He said: “We call on the government to take more responsibility, engage more community people in their programme designs to address issues that pertain to them, and also see that more support in terms of funding and employment be done at the appropriate time. The government should at least check for those that have retired and replace them to fill the deficiency we are having in service delivery.”
He said that the ATM Networks (including TB NETWORK, NEPWHAN, and ACOMIN) are collaborating with NACA on the COVID-19 Response Mechanism/Resilient and Sustainable System for Health (C19RM) Grant.