Co-ordinator cautions Ghanaians on AIDS (page 3)

THE Country Co-ordinator of the United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) in Ghana, Dr Leo Zekeng, has warned Ghanaians not to be complacent about their achievement in reducing the HIV prevalence rate, else the country would be overtaken by events.
At the opening of a four-day special meeting of the International Advisory Board of the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial in Accra yesterday, Dr Zekeng said the reduction in the HIV prevalence rate from 3.6 per cent in 2003 to 2.7 per cent in 2005 to the present figure of 1.7 per cent should rather encourage the people to do more to reduce the rate further.
Members of this board are the regional co-ordinators for the AIDS Candlelight Memorial from around the world.
In his address, Dr Zekeng stressed that what all Ghanaians should aim at now was to continue the fight to achieve an HIV prevalence of less than one per cent, adding that there was the need to involve the communities if much should be achieved.
Quoting from the 2003 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey report, he said more than 95 per cent of Ghanaians had knowledge of HIV and AIDS and noted that it was important people practised what they knew.
Addressing the participants, the President of Afro Global Alliance, Chief Austin Arinze Obiefuna, said although Ghana seemed to be winning the fight against HIV and AIDS, the same could not be said about other African countries.
He noted that the sub-Saharan Africa was the region with the largest burden of the AIDS pandemic as indicated in the 2006 UNAIDS report and said about 2.1 million Africans died of AIDS in 2006, which was almost three quarters or 72 per cent of all AIDS-related deaths globally.
Describing the situation as alarming, Chief Obiefuna urged the participants to use the meeting as an opportunity to set in motion strong advocacy at all levels, especially in the communities.
"We should let our people recognise that their health constitutes their wealth and that every successful endeavour hinges on good health," he stressed.
The International Outreach Co-ordinator of the Global Health Council, Mr Todd Lawrence, said the council's decision to choose Ghana for the meeting was based on the country's success in bringing down the HIV prevalence rate.
He said although there had been similar meetings in some African countries, there had never been such a meeting in West Africa, hence the decision to organise it in Accra.
He expressed the hope that at the end of the meeting, issues of universal access to treatment, human rights violation and stigmatisation would be tackled.
In a speech read on her behalf, the acting Director General of the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC), Dr Angela El-Adas, said about 33 million people suffered from HIV and AIDS world-wide and expressed the hope that the meeting would deliberate on crucial issues that could help in fighting the pandemic.
The International AIDS Candlelight Memorial, which is a Global Health programme, is one of the oldest and largest grass roots mobilisation campaigns for HIV and AIDS awareness. The campaign, which started in 1983, takes place every third Sunday of May and is led by a coalition of about 1,200 community organisations in 155 countries hosting local memorials to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS.
Meanwhile a statement released at the meeting indicated that conditions related to pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) accounted for a third of the global disease burden among women and girls aged 15 to 44.
In addition, it said, the lifetime risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes for women in developing countries was nearly 100 times higher than those in the developed world.