The Ghana AIDS Commission has urged the public to avoid stigmatising persons living with HIV/AIDS in order to sustain the fight against the deadly virus.
Ghana currently has a 1.3 per cent HIV/AIDS prevalence rate, and the figure could drop further by the end of 2014.
Mr Welbeck Amoani Twum, a technical coordinator with the AIDS Commission, said the target was to move “Ghana towards an HIV-free generation through the elimination of mother-to-child transmission, safe sex habits and reduction in the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS infection”.
At this year’s celebration of the World AIDS Day at Wechiau in the Wa West District of the Upper West Region, Mr Twum said the cost of treating HIV/AIDS infection in terms of both emotional and financial outlay required that people remained disciplined to avoid the disease altogether.
The District Chief executive for Wa West, Hon. Adamu Dasana, advised community members to access the voluntary testing facility to know their status, and cautioned them against stigmatizing infected persons.
“Whether it is your wife or your husband who is infected, you can live with them without contracting the disease, so let’s give them the best of care and support to make them productive in society,” he said.
Voluntary testing
The occasion provided access to voluntary HIV/AIDS testing and counseling services to community members, alongside other medical screening services.
As part of the occasion, officials of the AIDS Commission and the district assembly had visited the Wechiau Hospital to interact with medical staff and patients accessing the facility.
Matthew E.C. Dari, a senior nursing officer at the hospital, appealed for expansion and upgrading of facilities at the health centre to conform with its new status as a hospital, pointing to the single general ward and the small space of the OPD as examples requiring urgent attention.
The DCE responded that the recent composite budget submitted to the assembly had taken cognisance of the needs of the hospital, and promised that the assembly would give due attention to the needs of the hospital.
The World AIDS Day is slated for December 1 of every year, meaning Tuesday’s celebration was a belated event at the regional level, and officials explained that it had been shifted because the regional event clashed with “other similarly important events in the Upper West”.
