50% of SFH’s programme beneficiaries are the poor.

50% of rural pregnant women and children under 5 sleep under long lasting insecticide treated nets in at least two focus states.
Modern contraceptive prevalence rate increases from 11% to 16%.

Consistent condom use among high risk groups increases by 20%.

SFH MISSION

Society for Family Health has a mission to empower Nigerians, particularly the poor and vulnerable to lead healthier lives...more 

The Global Fund HIV Counselling and Testing Project in the Society for Family Health

Nigeria, being the most populous African nation has a population of over 140 million people. With a general population adult HIV prevalence of 3.6%, the country has the world’s third largest burden of people living with HIV/AIDS after South Africa and India. The population of people living with HIV/AIDS is estimated to be 3.86 million, and AIDS related deaths average 310,000 per year.

 The Society for Family Health implements the Global Fund Round 5 project which commenced in January 2007. The overall goal of the project is to reduce HIV/AIDS-related mortality and morbidity through six main objectives: 

1. To scale up comprehensive HIV/AIDS treatment, care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS to all the 37 States in the country.
2. To expand access to Testing and Counselling services to cover 37 States of the country
3. To strengthen the role of the community, civil society organisations and networks of PLWHA in providing and supporting HIV/AIDS treatment and care.
4. To increase access to care and support services for OVC in 37 states of the country.
5. To increase the capacity of the private sector to implement workplace HIV/AIDS program in 12 states.
6. To strengthen the capacity of implementing institutions for effective programme management, coordination, monitoring and evaluation. 

SFH is responsible for objective 2 of the programme to expand access to HIV testing and counselling services to cover all 37 States of the country. Counselling and testing(C&T) is an important entry point to HIV/AIDS prevention and care. People who know their HIV status are better able to take appropriate individual and collective measures to prevent transmission of HIV.  C&T also enables HIV positive people to enter treatment early, access care and support and so increase their chances of better health outcomes. It is expected that there will be an increased number of people who know their HIV status, entering into treatment, care and support, leading to reduced morbidity and mortality from HIV and AIDS in Nigeria at the end of the programme. 

The Integrated Cluster Model 
The programme uses an ‘Integrated Cluster Model’ which involves developing a network or clusters of secondary and primary health facilities that will provide comprehensive HIV/AIDS care,  including testing and counselling, PMTCT and ART within a geographical sphere or radius of 30mins walking distance from each other within a particular community. This aims at strengthening capacity of and links between General hospitals, PHC facilities and community based efforts to ensure a continuum of care for people living with HIV/AIDS. Decentralizing HIV/AIDS treatment and care to secondary and primary levels will enable more people access treatment and achieve significant impact on HIV/AIDS related morbidity and mortality.  

Figure 1
Central to the model is the issue of coordination. To ensure effective coordination, meetings were set up at various levels including at the cluster level where primary implementing activities are carried out. This to a large extent built team work and integration among partners and encouraged community participation and ownership.  

Multiple partners (known as sub recipients (SRs) support SFH to implement the counselling and testing component of the project. Family Health International and Planned Parenthood Federation of Nigeria are the SRs managing the provision of services to Public and Private Facilities respectively. Nigeria Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) and Gede Foundation are the SRs for training, while Crown Agents and International Dispensary Association (IDA) act as commodity procurement agencies. 

Project Achievements
Through the project, SFH has ensured the availability of standard HIV C&T health infrastructures in 108 public and private health facilities.
Over 221,000 rapid test kits were procured and distributed to various health facilities.
One hundred and thirty-seven (137) testing sites were opened in the first year of the project and one hundred and eight (108) new sites were renovated and upgraded in the second year.

• Over 450,000 Nigerians have been counselled, tested and received results through the project.
• Over 300 Health workers in both public and private health facilities have been trained on HIV counselling and testing.
• One hundred and forty-nine persons were trained on M&E in both private and public health facilities at the state and local government levels.