Monday, December 30th, 2024, major parts of Benin City witnessed a HIV Awareness Campaign/Road Show in commemoration of the World Aids Day.
The event, which is a culmination of an extensive one month program, was given birth to through the partnership between RAHI Medical Hospital, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and Arit Walden.
In a chat with the press during the epoch event, Dr. Chris Ekiyor, Medical Director, RAHI Medical Hospital disclosed that the event is to meant to wrap up the year in commemoration of the World Aids Day and should have been done earlier “but we thought that we should do it during the festive period.”
He affirmed that this pattern was chosen “because people are celebrating around town. A lot of shows are going on. We want to create a complete mix of health celebration and entertainment. The focus is to be able to attract people to listen to the message about getting tested; about knowing your status; about learning how to live safe etc.
“The NDDC has been driving the process in the last four weeks. We have been doing this with them in several other spheres – fight against malaria; medical missions etc but today’s focus is taking the campaign on HIV reduction to another level.”
Going further, he stressed: “What these serve to do is that as we continue to exist we need to play safe, we need to break the cycle so that at least we can eradicate the disease completely. HIV is something that could have destroyed the world but for the campaign and the preventive measures that we have been doing.”
In her submission, Abigail Ugiagbe, Assistant Director, Education, Health and Social Services in the Benin Office of the NDDC stated that the event “is a way of ensuring that the people of the Niger Delta region are not infected by HIV/AIDS. That the transmission is brought to the barest minimum.”
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