Health News of Thursday, 23 April 2015

Source: GNA

110 pregnant women tested HIV positive in 2014

One Hundred and ten pregnant women tested HIV positive in the Tema Metropolis in the year 2014.

The figure represented one per cent of the total 10,770 pregnant women tested during the period.

Mr Harvey Akafu, the Tema Metropolitan Health Directorate Information Officer, disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency in an interview.

Mr Akafu said all the 110 pregnant women, who tested positive were put on the Anti-Retroviral treatment.

He said statistics showed that the number of positives recorded under the compulsory testing for pregnant women, were gradually reducing.

He explained that pregnant women were seen as a typical case of having unprotected sex and therefore they were required to test for HIV to help prevent transmission of the virus to unborn babies from their infected mothers.

Mr Akafu therefore encouraged pregnant women to attend antenatal clinics to enable them to check their status.

Meanwhile, a total of 1,292 people tested HIV positive in the Tema Metropolis during the period.

These cases were recorded under general testing where people went through the test voluntarily.

Out of the number of positives, 841 were females and 451 males.

A total of 6,005 people, comprising 3341 females and 2664 males were tested for the virus.