Impact Of Hiv/Aids On Economic Growth Innigeria: 1990-2016

This study was conducted with the objective of investigating the impact of HIV/AIDS on economic growth in Nigeria for the period 1990 –2016. It adopts a vector error correction mechanism (VECM) to analyse relationship between the spread of HIV/AIDS and economic growth in Nigeria. The task was to estimate how the economy would have performed in terms of real GDP in the absence of HIV/AIDS prevalence and contrast that result with an estimate of economic performance in real GDP term, given the prevalence of HIV/AIDS. Findings revealed that economic growth in Nigeria would decline by about 30 per cent annually for every one unit change in the spread of HIV/AIDS holding all other variables constant. The study included some control variables that were found to be statistically significant in explaining the relationship between HIV/AIDS and economic growth in Nigeria with human capital development having the highest impact among the control variables. It recommends among other things, the need to speed up more efforts to track down the rising incidence of HIV/AIDS by promoting awareness on the risk of contracting the diseases, increasing budgetary allocation to the health sector for massive investment in HIV/AIDS related programmes of intervention, an expanded healthinsurance cover to include HIV/AIDS, adequate collaboration with external bodies for exchange programmes such as transfer of expertise, sharing information on the best practices to combat or halt the spread of HIV/AIDS and retraining Nigerian Doctors in the field of community health for rapid treatment of those affected.