The National Agency for the Control of
AIDS (NACA) yesterday has said it recently discovered and identified
about 3500 male sex workers within the Abuja city centre.
The agency added that it is worried by
these figures because over 60 per cent of these men are married,raising
the concern of spouse HIV transmission.
At its maiden lecture yesterday to mark
this year’s World AIDS day in Abuja with the theme- Strategies for
Ending AIDS in Nigeria by 2030, the Director General of NACA, Professor
John Idoko said the agency is now targeting hotspot areas in its drive
to end the HIV epidemic.
He said, “We found that in Benue, 60
per cent of men who visited bars, restaurants and hotels were seeking
sexual partners while 12 per cent of the females were seeking sexual
partners and 9 percent of those who patronise these places are female
sex workers.
“We also noticed substantial risk
behaviour in rural areas. In Benue, 30 per cent of the unmarried men had
visited a worker and 18 per cent had visited a sex worker within the
last one month. But this was not the same across the state as some
places were high risk areas.”
Credit: Leadership
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