Koforidua, May 22, GNA- The Deputy Eastern Regional Director of Health Services, Dr Emmanuel Tenkorang has asked the youth to focus on their studies and abstain from premarital sex since that could be inimical to their social and mental development.
Dr Tenkorang was speaking at the inauguration of a Sexual Abstinence Club for schools in the New Juaben Municipality initiated by the Assemblies of God Church Foundation.
He said the 2004 Sentinel Survey Report indicated that out of every 100 adults in Koforidua, six were infected with HIV, eight at Agormenya eight and six at Fanteakwa.
Dr Tenkorang said a lot still remained to be done to bring down the infection rate in the Eastern Region.
The Regional Superintendent of the Assemblies of God, Rev. Alex Ofori Amankwah expressed the need for the right strategies to be adopted to curtail the spread of the virus. He asked members of the club to encourage their peers to refrain from premarital sex.
An HIV/AIDS Counsellor at the Koforidua Regional Hospital, Mrs Victoria Tutu, who chaired the function, also called for urgent measures to halt the alarming rate of infection, which she said was threatening the future of the youth.