Mrs Mahama launches free medical screening exercise
The First Lady, Mrs Lordina Mahama, launched a free medical screening exercise for the people of the Ashanti Region at Mampong last Friday with a call on women to take advantage of the exercise to save their lives.
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The launch brings to six the number of regions where the First Lady’s free medical screening exercise has been launched. They are the Greater Accra, Eastern, Western, Central, Brong Ahafo and the Ashanti regions.
The next round of free medical care will take the Lordina Foundation to the Northern, Volta, Upper East and Upper West regions.
Foundation
The exercise, initiated by the Lordina Foundation in collaboration with the Organisation of African First Ladies Against HIV and AIDS (OAFLA) Ghana Chapter, the Ghana AIDS Commission and the UT Care Foundation, was attended by a large number of queenmothers, chiefs, religious leaders, members of the community, and the youth, among others.
The launch was on the theme: “Preventing Mother-to-Child Transmission: The Key to an HIV-Free Generation and Keeping Mothers Alive.”
Mrs Mahama embarked on a passionate and aggressive advocacy and awareness-raising campaign to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV, while supporting the health, education and well-being of the orphans and vulnerable children in the country.
She has strived to keep mothers alive through integrated HIV, breast and cervical cancer prevention programmes.
Current advancement
Speaking at the ceremony, Mrs Mahama said with the current advancement in HIV treatment, one could remain healthy and live a full life and not die prematurely of AIDS. “The screening for HIV and AIDS as well as cervical and breast cancers are very important for women as early detection is the only key to curing the disease,” she said.
According to her, health is very critical to the development of the nation. In Ghana, women and children with HIV, together constitute 75 per cent of all HIV cases and in 2013 alone, 2,407 children under 15 years were newly infected with HIV while cervical and breast cancers were the commonest causes of cancer-related deaths among women in the country.
Cervical cancer
The First Lady said close to 5,000 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer each year while another 2,900 women were diagnosed with breast cancer.
She said there were simple measures to reduce the needless infections transmitted to children and to prevent and detect the disease affecting the reproductive health of women, and therefore urged all to take advantage of the free screening to stay healthy at all times.
The Director General of the Ghana AIDS Commission, Dr Angela El-Addas, said in 2013, the Ghana chapter of OAFLA, in collaboration with the Ghana AIDS Commission and health partners, embarked on a campaign that had been successfully launched in six regions.
The Municipal Chief Executive of Mampong, Mr Mohammed Kojo Aboasu, said the launch demonstrated the First Lady’s personal commitment and support to the national efforts towards the elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and the strengthening of reproductive health services.
He said in 2001, the Ministry of Health and the Ghana AIDS Commission, with the support of development partners, initiated prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and extended it to other parts of the country.