Provide a statement explaining how your proposed course of study relates to a development need. You are advised to deacribe how your course of study relates to development in your country or sector, and how it relates to the chosen theme. Please say on return how you will your new skills and qualifications and describe the outcome that you hope to achieve and the timeframe for the implementation. This could usefully be related to a national development priority or objective. Please suggest how the impact of your work can be measured and describe a typical potential benefit from your research/study.
the fight against hiv transmission
HIV/AIDS undoubtedly is a major threat to development, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. The detrimental effects of AIDS are mostly seen in this region. Nigeria currently has the second largest HIV pandemic with over 3.2 million people living with the disease of which over 196000 are adolescents. In 2016, an estimated 27000 children were newly infected with HIV due to mother-to-child transmission. There were over 220,000 new cases and over 160,000 AIDS related deaths. Unfortunately, only a small number (30%) of the people living with HIV in Nigeria have access to Antiretroviral Treatment (ART).
This is the reason behind my pursuit of the Commonwealth Masters Scholarship in Public Health so as to gain necessary knowledge and skills to improve the country's public health foundation to prevent further transmission of HIV, to provide care and treatments for those already infected and strengthen human resource capacity.
Recent medical research has shown HIV to have caused a resurgence of Tuberculosis (TB) as Nigeria currently has the fourth largest epidemic with HIV and TB co-infection now becoming an increasing concern for people living with HIV.
The current drive by the government to eradicate HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) has led to the formulation of a number of policies and programmatic approaches. The National Policy on HIV/AIDS and the National Strategic Framework (2017-2021) were introduced which incorporates the private sector, government entities and international bodies such as the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), Department for International Development (DfID) and World Health Organization (WHO) to achieve its goal of eradicating AIDS by achieving zero new infection, zero Mother-to-child transmission, zero AIDS related and zero indiscrimination.
This multi-sectorial approach adopted by the government is coordinated by the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) which oversees policies, programmes and projects as well as provides leadership and monitors the epidemic.
HIV prevalence in Nigeria has been shown to be highest in the southern states and lowest in the southeast with higher rates in the rural areas than the urban and greater numbers among the females. This has been attributed to low provision and access to anti-retroviral treatment, illiteracy, shortage of health workers, and insufficient HIV testing and counseling centres as many people living with the virus are unaware of their status. Therefore, there is a need for HIV/AIDS education at all levels to help curb vertical transmission from mother-to-child, illegal drug use and encourage HIV testing and treatment.
Consequent to my return home, I will organize and collaborate with the government and others bodies on "Prevention of Mother-to-child Transmission" sensitization campaigns to the rural areas to educate and encourage HIV testing among women and use of anti-retroviral treatment as this does not only benefit those already living with HIV, it will also drastically reduce the chance of transmission to others.
Post award, the CSC can track my work by contacting me and my impacts towards preventing mother-to-child transmission through successful completion of projects which would be made available on social media.
@Holt and others, please help review. Awaiting your reviews.Holt Educational Consultant - / 14,835 
4783 Ahmed, there is no clear course of study provided in your essay. Your earlier statement, the opening portion of the essay, delves on general information in relation to HIV/AIDS in Nigeria. It does not reflect the average percentile of Mother to Child Transmissions, which is the basis of your desire to study this course. Therefore, you should revise the essay in a manner that instead, focuses on the Mother to Child transmission rates in relation to your proposed study plan which is supposed to help control or resolve that issue. After you present your study plan, explain how why you believe that this particular health crisis is part of the developmental need of the people of Nigeria. Thereby justifying the reason that the government of Nigeria will support the Mother to Child transfer prevention program. You cannot discuss HIV/AIDS in a stand alone manner then suddenly present the Mother to Child scenario. You must ensure that the two problems are connected in your study as these are connected in real life.
Your plans upon your return are too cut and dried and therefore, little informative. You need to have some sort of plan of action such as working for the Department of Health where you can influence the HIV program to give a specific focus to your Mother to Child Transfer outreach program. Explain how this should work to reduce the instance of HIV, how you plan to implement this, and what you assumed success rate might be.
Do not indicate that the scholarship should contact you for updates regarding the program. You should take it upon yourself to inform them of the developments you will be having in this field. So, aside from social media, you should look into a constantly updated website where the records of your progress can be kept and easily referred to when required.
