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The National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) has urged the public not to rely on unauthorised Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) data found on social media, adding that HIV figures circulating on social media may be misleading and taken out of context.
NACA’s warning follows a post shared by a blog which went viral on April 1. The blog claimed Lagos and Benue states recorded the highest numbers of HIV cases in Nigeria between January and March 2026. The blog cited the National Data Repository as the source of its data.
“Nigeria recorded 20,838 new HIV infections between January and March 2026, with Lagos and Benue states reporting the highest numbers, according to the National Data Repository. Lagos accounted for 2,298 cases, followed by Benue with 1,949. Akwa Ibom was third with 1,159 infections, while Rivers and Anambra reported 1,137 and 1,013 cases, respectively,” it claimed.
NACA, in a statement signed by its Director-General, Temitope Ilori, on Wednesday, said the publication did not follow established protocols for data request, validation, and dissemination. According to the agency, the figures sourced from the National Data Repository reflect HIV positivity from routine testing in health facilities and not the actual burden of the disease.
“HIV positivity alone is not a valid measure of prevalence or incidence and cannot be used to determine or rank the burden of HIV,” the agency said.
“Variations in such figures may be influenced by factors including population size, differences in the scale and intensity of testing programmes, as well as disparities in data reporting completeness and timeliness.”
It added that ranking states based solely on these figures is misleading and inaccurate. NACA also urged Nigerians to rely on data from only authorised government health institutions, adding that only they possess the mandate and technical expertise to generate, interpret, and release such information.
“The responsibility for generating, interpreting, and disseminating HIV data and related estimates rests with authorised government health institutions with the requisite mandate and technical expertise,” NACA added.
