Ghanaians asked to fight HIV/AIDS collectively

Accra, March 20, GNA - Ghanaians were reminded that HIV/AIDS remained a deadly disease affecting national development and required the efforts of all and sundry to fight the disease.

The people should, therefore, consider HIV/AIDS a very destructive to progress and to initiate positive measures to fight the disease. The Dean of Faculty of Social Studies at the University of Ghana, Legon, Professor Joseph R.A. Ayee, said these at Legon during the inauguration of the Second Phase of the Distance Education Course on HIV/AIDS Counseling and Care Giving at the Institute of Adult Education, on Saturday at Legon.

It was organised by the Institute in collaboration with the UNFPA to control the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Prof observed that that it was difficult for people, particularly the youth to adjust to behavioral change and advised the participants to take the programme seriously to enable them acquire knowledge required to sensitise the public about the HIV/AIDS.

He commended officials of the various Halls of the University for incorporating HIV/AIDS education into programmes of Hall week celebrations to sanitise students on the disease.

The Acting Director of the Institute of Adult Education, Mrs. Kate Adoo-Adeku said the World Health Report on HIV/AIDS for last year, stated that 33.6 million cases have been recorded worldwide with half the number being recorded Sub-Sahara African countries.

She said the disease had ravaged Africa and crippled the economies of countries on the continent.

Mrs. Adoo-Adeku said a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) comment on AIDS in the year 2000 said while infection rates in Thailand and Eastern countries was decreasing, it was rising in Africa adding about 6,000 people die of AIDS daily in Africa.

She said the Institute was executing Mass Media Support for Adult Population Education Project with funding from the UNFPA and the government of Ghana since the early 1990s to prevent the spread of the disease.