The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has disclosed 20,695 Nigerian children between the ages of 0 and 9 were infected with HIV in 2020.
The UNICEF representative in Nigeria, Peter Hawkins who made this known in a statement on Tuesday, said the COVID-19 pandemic hindered adequate access to HIV treatment services, leading to the increased infection rates among pregnant women, children, and adolescents.
According to the statement: “In Nigeria, 20,695 children aged 0-9 years were newly infected with HIV in 2020 – or one child every 30 minutes,”
“In Nigeria, about 30 percent of AIDS-related deaths in 2020 occurred in children. Alarmingly, only about 3.5 percent of the 1,629,427 Nigerians receiving antiretroviral treatment (ART) are children, revealing a big treatment gap.
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“In Nigeria, almost eight out of ten new infections occurring in adolescents aged 10-19 occur in adolescent girls, while an estimated 83,000 pregnant women in Nigeria are HIV positive. Only 44 percent of them are on ART, risking continued mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
“The report notes that many countries saw significant disruptions in HIV services due to COVID-19 in early 2020. HIV infant testing in high burden countries declined by 50 to 70 percent, with new treatment initiations for children under 14 years of age falling by 25 to 50 percent.
