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The vast majority of girls who work in the Nigerian capital Abuja carry condoms to protect against the HIV infection that can cause AIDS, in a country with the world's third highest prevalence rate, a senior health official said Thursday.
"Eighty-three percent of girls who work in Abuja carry condoms," Dr Babatunde Osotimehin, the chairman of the National Action Committee Against AIDS, said in a televised interview.
He did not give details about the survey, adding that the HIV-AIDS prevalence rate in Nigeria stands at 4.4 percent of the 130 million population and around 3.5 million Nigerians are living with the disease.
Government efforts to fight HIV-AIDS, he added, have improved with the total budget for the campaign rising from a meagre 300,000 naira (2,343 dollars/ 1,875 euros) in 1998 to about eight billion naira (62.5 million dollars/ 50 million euros) in this year's budget, five billion naira of which is for drugs alone.
Testing centres have also increased from 25 early last year to 100 currently, 10 of which are in Lagos, Nigeria's biggest city, he added.
The government has made HIV-AIDS treatment free from the beginning of this year in an effort to give more people access to drugs.
The government has also intensified efforts in empowering, teaching, educating as well as providing jobs to commercial sex workers (prostitutes) as "alternative" means of livelihood.
"Stigmatisation of victims of the disease is on the decline and generally, things are getting better," said Osotimehin.
There are about 350 HIV-AIDS support groups in Nigeria, he added, and government is looking into the possibility of working with traditional medicine practitioners in the search for a cure to the disease.
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AFP 272125 GMT 07 06
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