Six sites identified with high HIV/AIDS prevalence rates

Ghana's highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rate of 8.5 per cent has been recorded in Koforidua, the Eastern Regional capital, Professor Sekyi Amoa, Director-General of the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC), told Journalists in Accra on Thursday.

Other with rates above the national average of 3.4 per cent were; Agormanya in the Eastern Region with 7.0 per cent; Tema in the Greater Accra Region with 6.6 per cent, Eikwe in the Western Region, 6.0 per cent and Kumasi the Ashanti Regional capital has 4.2 per cent.

These figures have given rise to concerns of a possible AIDS explosion should the national prevalence rate rise above the five per cent threshold, which experts say could then become difficult to control.

Prof. Amoa was speaking to a group of Journalists, who called on him at the GAC Secretariat as part of a five-day workshop on reporting on HIV/AIDS, which began on Monday.

It was organised by the African Institute of Journalism and Communication with support from the US Embassy in Accra.

The Director-General said the country's neighbours such as Cote d'Ivoire; Togo and Nigeria had HIV/AIDS prevalence rates of between 6.0 and 11.0 per cent.

He mentioned low behavioural change, high number of cases of sexually transmitted infections, low condom use, multiple sexual partners, high refugee population and movement of people within the transport corridors of the west Africa Sub-Region as being responsible for the fuelling of the pandemic in Ghana.

Prof. Amoa said as part of the national response to stem the AIDS epidemic, programmes on awareness creation, support and care of people living with HIV/AIDS, up-scaling of voluntary counselling and testing were already on-going.

He said with a World Bank loan of 25 million dollars and another 20 million pounds from the Department for International Development of the UK government, various sums of money had been made available to a total of 1,500 organisations involved in HIV/AIDS activities.

He said 250 million cedis had been set-aside on education for Ministries, Department and Agencies from the government sector and 220 million cedis for non-governmental organisations on a yearly basis.

Prof. Amoa said some organisations had misapplied the funds given to them and would face the law and have their accounts frozen by next week.