Nigeria reports 15,000 AIDS-related deaths annually: official

ABUJA, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Nigeria records at least 15,000 deaths related to Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) every year despite efforts by the government to curb the spread of the deadly disease in the most populous African country, a local official said Thursday.

Temitope Ilori, head of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), told reporters during an advocacy and sensitization program in Abeokuta, the capital of the southwestern state of Ogun, that more than 22,000 new cases of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), which attacks the body's immune system at the early stage of AIDS, have been reported so far this year.