3500 Male Sex Workers Discovered in Abuja

Alarmed by the rise of sexually transmitted diseases, the National Agency for the Control of AIDS, NACA, yesterday disclosed that it recently discovered and identified about 3500 male sex workers within the Abuja city centre.The agency said these figures are alarming because over 60 per cent of these men are married, raising the concern of spouse HIV transmission.The Director General of the agency, Professor John Idoko, 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”, said the agency is now targeting hotspot areas in its drive to end the HIV epidemic.Idoko said: “Within the Federal Capital Terrritory, we found that if we focus our resources in three council areas of Gwagwalada, Bwari and Abuja Municipal, we would have covered a greater population of persons with HIV within the area.”He said the agency is developing interventions to be able to reduce contact between infected and uninfected persons.