On January 28, Chinonso Egemba, the Nigerian medical expert better known as Aproko Doctor, claimed that Nigeria has the world’s second-highest number of people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Aproko Doctor shared this claim on his X handle, which has around 2.3 million followers, in response to US President Donald Trump’s decision to stop funding for HIV treatment in developing countries as part of an executive order on foreign aid.
Following Trump’s executive order, the US Department of State suspended the disbursement of funds from the president’s emergency plan for AIDS relief (PEPFAR).
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), PEPFAR is providing HIV treatment for more than 20 million people living with the disease globally, including 566,000 children under 15 years of age.
In the post, the medical influencer outlined how the stoppage of HIV funding from the US government will adversely impact the availability of antiretroviral drugs.
When Aproko Doctor was challenged about his source of information, he shared a screenshot of an article published on the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) website.
“Nigeria has the world’s second highest number of people living with HIV,” Aproko Doctor wrote.
In the article published in 2018, UNICEF stated that Nigeria has 190,950 HIV/AIDS infections per year – the second highest rate in the world. The global body said Nigeria had the world’s second-highest burden of HIV/AIDS, with an estimated three million people living with HIV. The article indicates that the data cited by UNICEF was sourced from 2015.
It is imperative to note that data on the burden of the virus differs from the data on those living with it. The HIV burden encompasses the overall impact of the virus, including the number of people living with the virus, the rate of new infections, and the deaths caused by the virus, among others.
VERIFICATION
To verify the claim, CableCheck examined the WHO’s HIV country intelligence dashboard. As of 2023, the dashboard displays data on persons living with HIV in at least 134 countries.
The data indicates that South Africa has the highest number of persons living with HIV, with 7.7 million individuals, followed by India at 2.5 million, Mozambique with 2.4 million, and Nigeria in fourth place with 2 million.
| Country | Number of Persons Living With HIV |
| South African | 7,700,000 |
| India | 2,500,000 |
| Mozambique | 2,400,000 |
| Nigeria | 2,000,000 |
| United Republic of Tanzania | 1,700,000 |
| Uganda | 1,500,000 |
| Kenya | 1,400,000 |
| Zambia | 1,300,000 |
| Zimbabwe | 1,300,000 |
| Brazil | 1,000,000 |
Table displaying the top 10 countries with the highest number of persons living with HIV. Source: WHO
The data means that Nigeria has the fourth-highest number of persons living with HIV globally and the third-highest in Africa.
In a report released by the WHO in July 2024, approximately 39.9 million people are living with HIV at the end of 2023. The report did not give the breakdown of data in each country. However, an estimated 26 million people living with the virus are in Africa.
VERDICT
The claim that Nigeria has the second-highest number of people living with HIV in the world is untrue. Recent data from the WHO suggests otherwise.
