She said, “The sensitisation and screening held during the Lagos City Marathon was aimed to sensitise all participants and the general public on the NTDs which is said to affect over 1.7 billion of the world’s impoverished population, including more than 1 billion children. Marathoners and other participants also received free HIV tests, counselling and treatment as part of the outreach.

“What we have done at Access Bank is to partner with relevant stakeholders to ensure that we are able to get as many people tested, let people know their statuses and take the relevant action that they need to take.”

The Executive Director, HACEY Health Initiative, Ms. Rhoda Robison, said, “We provided free HIV counsel and testing as well as free condoms for over 3,000 people that attended the marathon. This started from the kits collection event to the marathon day itself. It is not about testing alone, it is about providing them information to continuously prevent HIV infection and for those who are positive for them to stick with their ARC treatment so that they achieve virus suppression.”

“HACEY Health Initiative has been working with and preventing HIV over 10 years so we have been working for over a decade and we have been working with Access bank for the past four to five years in ensuring and promoting HIV testing and counselling. We connect those who are tested positive to different centers, we have achieved a lot, we’ve reached over 10,000 people through our messages over the years.”

The ENDFund Africa regional Adviser, Mr Oyetola Oduyemi, expressed satisfaction on the collaboration to help reduce diseases.

source: Punch