Protect yourself against HIV - Dr El-Adas tells youth (Health Page)

GHANA joined the international community to commemorate this year’s World AIDS Day, which fell yesterday, with a piece of advice from the acting Director-General of the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC), Dr Angela El-Adas, to the youth to stay away from activities that could expose them to HIV infection.
She said currently, HIV prevalence among the youth was 1.9 per cent, which was higher than the national prevalence of 1.7 per cent.
“I wish to sound a clarion call, particularly to our young people, as the custodians of this country's future, to take the lead in abstaining from sex until marriage, abstain from casual sex, and reduce concurrent sexual partners. Otherwise, remember to use condoms correctly and consistently,” she stressed.
Commemorated on December 1, each year, the World AIDS Day is dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic, caused by the spread of HIV infection.
The theme for this year’s commemoration, “Universal Access and Human Rights” has been chosen worldwide to address the critical need to protect human rights and attain universal access for all, to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support.
Led by the GAC, the national event was celebrated with a special durbar at the Jackson’s Park in Koforidua, and that was in addition to similar events held at all regional, district and community levels throughout the country.
In an interview with the Daily Graphic, the acting Director-General of the GAC, Dr El-Adas said the commemoration was also “a call to action for all of us, especially those of us in authority; the political, traditional and religious leadership of this country, to help remove or revise laws, activities and cultural practices that discriminate against persons living with HIV, especially women and other marginalised groups”.
She explained that as a country, Ghana had made some progress in responding to the various challenges posed by the disease, and currently enjoys a relatively lower prevalence (1.7 per cent) than our neighbouring countries.
Dr El-Adas, however, pointed out the epidemic continued to pose a serious threat to national development, adding that “we need to redouble our efforts towards achieving total success in dealing with the epidemic”.
She stressed that in 2006, Ghana committed itself to achieving universal access to quality and comprehensive HIV services by 2010, but one major challenge, currently, was uptake of services, especially with reference to counselling and testing services.
She said in spite of all these efforts, records indicated that less than 10 per cent of Ghanaians knew their HIV status, adding that the aim of this year’s celebration, therefore, was to aggressively embark on activities that encouraged people to know their HIV status.
Dr El-Adas also pointed out that each Ghanaian had a duty to the country to be at the centre of “The Campaign”, aimed at reducing HIV stigma and discrimination in order to encourage accessing counselling and testing services, as well as treatment services that were abundantly available.
“Remember, even you could be infected and not know it. Get tested! Know your status and keep it. This is an urgent call, and the time to act is now,” she stated.
In Ghana, the objective for the celebration of the World AIDS Day, as spelt out by the GAC, is to enhance and advocate leadership and accountability in addressing the HIV epidemic in Ghana at all levels by engaging all stakeholders in decision-making at the national, regional, district, community, family and individual levels.
To achieve the desired objective, the GAC launched a month-long programme on November 2, 2009 in Accra, where the Vice-President of the Republic of Ghana, Mr John Dramani Mahama, called on Ghanaians to rededicate themselves to the fight against HIV and AIDS.
Some of the programmes organised by the GAC during the month November included provision of counselling and testing services at major market centres around the country, sensitisation exercises, a mini concert and candle light processions, special counselling and testing session for media practitioners, in conjunction with the Ghana Journalist Association (GJA) and special lectures on HIV, AIDS and human rights.