16,000 to die from HIV\AIDS this year

Page 47, Monday Oct 12, 2008
Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah
About 16,000 people may die through HIV/AIDS in the country this year, the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC) has revealed.
The figure, which translates into 70 deaths per day, is a decline from the 25,000 people who died last year.
The Technical Director of the GAC, Dr Richard N. Amenyah, who disclosed this, was speaking at a two-day workshop on HIV/AIDS for the leadership of Parliament at the Royal Atlantic Resort at Bortianor, near Accra, at the weekend.
The workshop was aimed at identifying ways of giving further impetus to the fight against the pandemic and carrying the fight to a new level by involving Members of Parliament (MPs).
It was organised by the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, with support from the GAC and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), on the theme, “Parliamentarians forum for Millennium Development Goals and Human Development — Linkages with HIV/AIDS”.
Dr Amenyah noted that since the disease had currently assumed an epidemic proportion, there was the need for the fight against its eradication to be the concern of all stakeholders.
He said while more than 200,000 families had suffered from the disease since its detection in the country, it was also showing a feminine face, as 58 per cent of the over 270,000 people who had been infected in the country were females.
Giving details of the HIV/AIDS situation in the country, Dr Amenyah stated that Agormenya in the Eastern Region led with an 8.9 prevalence rate on a chart of selected urban centres, while Fanteakwa, also in the Eastern Region, topped with a 5.8 per cent prevalent rate on the rural sites chart.
He, therefore, called for a new political commitment to the fight against the disease and charged political parties currently criss-crossing the country in search of votes to include messages on HIV/AIDS in their campaign.
In his address, the Deputy UNDP Resident Representative, Mr Shigeki Komatsubara, said while Ghana had made tremendous progress in stabilising the epidemic, Ghanaians needed to learn from the experiences of other sub-Saharan countries and not remain complacent.
“We need to recognise that the HIV/AIDS epidemic has become the hurdle for human development, claiming millions of lives and leaving millions more infected,” he said.
He added that if not kept in check, the disease would accentuate the burden of poor countries by worsening poverty, reversing the gains made in human development and reducing governments’ capacity to provide essential services for the people.
“The prevailing and projected socio-economic effect of the disease is so drastic that fighting AIDS has become synonymous with fighting poverty. The MDGs and many of the national poverty reduction targets can be achieved only if the AIDS crisis is addressed effectively,” he said
For his part, the Majority Leader and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Mr Abraham Ossei-Aidooh, noted that although the health sector was so vital in the fight against the disease, the halting of the spread of the pandemic could not be left to health workers alone.
He said the involvement of MPs had become crucial, since, as recognised opinion leaders, they could serve as effective change champions.
“I have no doubt that the positive involvement of MPs in the fight against HIV/AIDS will complement the effort of other organisations and individuals in several ways,” he said.
Mr Ossei-Aidooh appealed to MPs to work hard to address difficulties such as discrimination, stigmatisation, job loss and abandonment by families, relations and friends that persons living with HIV/AIDS went through.
He, however, acknowledged that there was the need to build the capacities of MPs to enable them to respond more effectively to the fight against the disease and thanked the UNDP and the GAC for assisting the ministry to organise the workshop for that purpose.