Sexual, reproductive health essential for women

Sexual and reproductive health care are essential components of women’s health. For millions of women, sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services were the primary point of contact with the health care system.
Integrating sexual health care (SHC) and HIV and AIDS programmes is therefore critical to increasing women’s access to HIV prevention, treatment and care which include prevention of mother to child transmission.
To provide women access to information on HIV and AIDS, the Society for Women and AIDS in Africa (SWAA) Ghana, organised a day’s advocacy meeting for donors, key sector ministers and their spouses and advocacy groups in Accra on Friday.
The meeting was to ensure that more women get informed about HIV and AIDS, as well as reproductive health issues to enable them to educate others.
In her presentation, the President of SWAA Ghana, Mrs Cecilia Lodonu Senoo, touching on challenges to achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4, 5 and 6, which relate to reducing child mortality, improving maternal health and combating HIV and AIDS.
She said 536,000 maternal deaths occurred annually world-wide, with 120 million couples having unmet needs for safe and effective contraception resulting in 80 million unwanted pregnancies.
In addition, she said 68,000 deaths occurred from unsafe abortions, and three million girls underwent Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
Presenting the Ghanaian picture, she said induced abortion was the second most common cause of maternal deaths in Ghana and that only 14 per cent of women aged between 15 and 49 used a modern method of family planning.
Quoting from the 2008 HIV and AIDS Sentinel Survey conducted in Ghana, Mrs Senoo stated that out of an estimated number of 236,151 persons living with HIV and AIDS, 98,306 were males and 137,845 were females .
For her part, the acting Director General of the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC), Dr Angela El-Adas, said individuals who were infected with sexually transmitted infections (STIs) such as syphilis, herpes or chancroids were at least two to five times more likely than uninfected individuals to acquire HIV.
“Sexually transmitted infections like Chlamydia and gonorrhoea increase the concentration of cells in genital secretion that can serve as targets for HIV infection”, she stressed.
Dr El-Adas added that men infected with gonorrhoea were more likely to shed HIV virus in their genital secretions than those who were HIV positive but had not contracted gonorrhoea.
She said Ghana had HIV counselling and testing coverage of 28 per cent for all pregnant women accessing ante-natal care services, and stressed that, that was drastically short of 80 per cent target for achieving universal access by 2010.
In her remarks, the President of SWAA International, Mrs Bernice Heloo, stated that SWAA was a pan-African women's organisation dedicated to women and their families in the fight against HIV and AIDS, pointing out that the organisation had supported many African countries in the area of education and advocacy.
A representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Ms Esi Awotwi, advised the participants to take the issue of sexual and reproductive health care seriously.