70 AIDS Cases Reported Daily

A TOTAL of 70 new infection, of HIV are recorded daily in the country despite the national prevalence rate of 1.9 per cent.

Prof. Fred T. Sai, Presidential Advisor on HIV/AIDS and Reproductive Health, made this startling revelation at a durbar to commemorate the 20th World Aids Day celebration in Accra, yesterday.

To this end, Professor Sai called on Ghanaians to do more to reduce the rate of new infections and to create the enabling environment for those infected and affected by the disease to lead normal lives, saying “we must also help in giving a human face to HIV”.

The day was instituted by Ministers of Health of the United Nations in 1988 to draw global attention to the dangers posed by the HIV pandemic to global development.

It was under the theme: “ Leadership, reducing stigma and discrimination”.

Prof. Sai said that HIV counselling and testing were the only means to ensure care and treatment, adding “HIV testing is the first step to confronting HIV stigma and discrimination”.

He said there are 33,000,000 people affected by the disease worldwide, out of which Ghana has contributed about 270,000 which he described as “harrowing”.

Speaking on the theme, Prof Sai said expressed the need for the removal of barriers that made women and girls vulnerable to HIV, as well as engaging men to reduce what he described as “risky behaviour”.

Prof. Sai appealed to government agencies, the business community and religious groups to demonstrate leadership in the national response by discussing HIV and AIDS on any platform they might find themselves.

He gave the assurance that government would continue to provide effective leadership and adopt measures to strengthen its the role of civil society, in particular, in the national response.

Prof. Sai also pledged government’s commitment to support the Ghana AIDS Commission to strengthen core mandate to ensure that the multi-sectoral approach to addressing HIV and AIDS in the country was sustained.

The United States Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Donald G. Teitelbaum, stressed the need for people to know their HIV and AIDS status to enable them to act accordingly.

According to him, a major challenge to containing the HIV and AIDS epidemic was the fact that people chose to either hide or were afraid of knowing their status.

He called on families and friends with people living with HIV and AIDS to show compassion to the victims.

The United Nations Resident Coordinator, Mr Daouda Toure, spoke of the need for people to stop the stigmatization and discrimination against HIV and AIDS victims, and stressed the need for leadership to be exhibited at all levels in order to win the fight against HIV and AIDS.