District assemblies told not to politicise HIV/AIDS Funds

Tamale, July 28, GNA - A coalition of HIV/AIDS support group operating in the Northern Region on Thursday appealed to district assemblies not to play politics with the disbursement of the HIV/AIDS Funds to ensure that people from all sectors of society took part in supporting PLWHAs.

The group said some district assemblies particularly those in the Northern Region were using the one per cent of the HIV/AIDS Fund from the District Assembly Common Fund to score political points, which was derailing the purpose of the fund.

The Northern Regional HIV/AIDS support group is a coalition of district support groups made up CBOs, NGOs, religious bodies, health institutions and the district assemblies.

The group advocates for quality services for People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs) and mobilise resources to offer care and support for them to improve their living standards.

Madam Theresa Baveng Fugluu, Programme Coordinator at the Northern Ghana office of the Christian Council of Ghana, (CCG) made the appeal in a ten point communiqu=E9 issued in Tamale on Thursday and addressed to the government, the Ghana AIDS Commission and the Ghana AIDS Control Programme.

A copy of the communiqu=E9 to the Ghana News Agency in Tamale called on the government and the Ministry of Health to speed up the decentralisation process of the Anti-retroviral Therapy (ART) to make it accessible to people living with the disease.

The communiqu=E9 said the government should bare the full cost of the Anti-retroviral drugs and enact laws that would protect people living with the disease as was being done to other vulnerable groups in the country.

It called on the government to consider increasing the HIV/AIDS share of the District Assembly Common Fund from the current one per cent to five per cent to be able to tackle problems of people living with the disease.

The communiqu=E9 also appealed to health institutions to make the Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) services confidential and should involve more health personnel in the counselling to improve that area. Earlier, the coalition embarked on a float through the principal streets of the Tamale Metropolis to drum home the need for people to abstain from premarital sex to reduce the rate of HIV/AIDS spread in the country.

Speaking to the GNA after the float Mr James Nahyi, Programmes Coordinator of the coalition advocated for training of people living with the disease to be used as counsellors as a means of reducing the rate of HIV/AIDS infection in the country.

He said if those with the disease were constantly used for the education in every community, people would change their attitude towards premarital sex to reduce the HIV/AIDS infection.