The Western Regional Chapter of the Ghana AIDS Commission has begun a “Let the Community Lead” awareness campaign to commemorate 2023 Global HIV/AIDS Day, which falls on December 1, 2023.
The campaign aims to inform and educate people about the abstinence of sex, mutual faithfulness, the use of condoms, and continued usage of HIV/AIDS drugs among the identified affected patients.
The Secretary for the Western Regional Commission for HIV/AIDS, Mr. Dramani Yakubu, speaking in an interview, gave statistics of 1,101 in the Western Region and 292 in Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis infected with the virus last year, adding that a total number of 23,904 persons are currently living with the virus in the region.
“1,101 people got newly infected last year. In Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis, about 292 people were newly infected with HIV, so people are still getting infected and are not happy mentioning the numbers. These are human beings.”
“As we speak, about 23,904 people are living with HIV in the Western Region, and these are not statistics of books or bad but human beings.”
“Each 23,904 has a family, so the persons are infected, but the families are affected. It has a huge effect, and we should not be complacent.”
“Sometimes stigma is born out of fear and ignorance. HIV is not transmitted through casual contact. Casual touching, eating together, shaking hands, and bathing with the same bucket don’t give HIV, so we should not stigmatize anybody with HIV and not fear that if a person sleeps in the same room or touches you in a car, they will get the virus, which is unlike COVID-19 but is an airborne disease.”
Mr. Yakubu also emphasized stigmatization within societies in the region.
He says people fear checking their HIV/AIDS statuses, while others who have tested positive fail to visit the hospital for medication due to stigma, which puts others at risk of being infected with the disease.
“It has to be sexual intercourse before you can be infected. It will be good if we minimize HIV-infected stigma. One of the main reasons why people fear going and testing for HIV is because of the stigma.
” Some people go and test, and they test positive and refuse to go for medication because they fear being identified and stigmatized, and that fear puts them at risk of fighting others who don’t have it,”
“The sign is clear: if you support a person living with HIV/AIDS and they are on their medication, you are directly preventing yourself from getting the virus,” Mr Dramani Yakubu added.
Author : Bernice Bimpong
