"Stigmatisation is greatest obstacle to fight against AIDS"

Saltpond (C/R), Oct. 1, GNA - Mr. Ken Appiah, a member of the Board of Directors of the Fed Kastle Promotions, a Saltpond based NGO, has described stigmatisation as the greatest obstacle to the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country.

"Let us treat AIDS patients just as we do to malaria patients or patients of other ailments," he said

Speaking at a workshop organised by the NGO for 30 peer educators at Saltpond, Mr. Appiah said to make people feel free to undergo voluntary tests and to disclose their AIDS status there was the need to assure the victims that they would not be treated as undesirable elements.

Mr. Appiah who is domiciled in Botswana, a country where the prevalence rate of the disease was high, said unless Ghanaians changed their attitude towards people living with HIV/AIDS, the huge investments being made by the government and donor agencies in the fight against the disease would not achieve the desired impact. He said in Botswana, a beauty contest was recently organised for people living with AIDS and said similar activities could be organised for people living with the disease in Ghana.

Mr. Appiah said the efforts to curb the spread of the disease were not enough adding that in Botswana, anti-AIDS activities were incorporated in the curricula of the schools churches, markets, work places and in all other facets of human activity.

Nana Kwaa Nkum Kwainoo IV, Nkusukum Banmuhen and President of the NGO urged the government to provide handouts on the disease for distribution to members of the public.

Nana Kwainoo urged educational institutions to use part of their religious and moral education periods to educate students on HIV/AIDS. Mr. Frank Baffoe, Vice-President of the organisation commended Miss Christine Antor, a Principal Nursing Officer and Mfantseman District AIDS Co-ordinator who was the resource person at the workshop for the efficient manner in which she treated the subjects.

He advised CBOs and NGOs to recruit experts as resource persons for their workshops to enable the participants to be equipped with the right type of message.

Mr. Francis Ejaaku Donoh, Executive Director of the NGO advised the peer educators to embark on house-to-house education of the people on the disease. He said the NGO has decided to institute awards for hard working educators.