Kumasi records more HIV/AIDS cases

Some 123 new HIV/AIDS cases were reported in the Kumasi metropolis between January and June this year. The figure is more than half of the 55 cases reported in the metropolis over the same period last year.

Mrs Theresa Otuo-Acheampong, Principal Nursing Officer at the Kumasi Metropolitan Health Directorate, announced this at a day's advocacy workshop for community opinion leaders in the Manhyia Sub-Metro in Kumasi on Tuesday.

The workshop was organised by Act Now Against AIDS Ghana, a Kumasi-based Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), with financial support from the Ghana AIDS Commission.

Mrs Otuo-Acheampong said HIV/AIDS had become a national problem that called for a concerted effort by every individual to help curtail its rapid spread.

She said the Kumasi Metro Health Directorate in conjunction with DANIDA had established Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) clinics in some health institutions for patients, especially commercial sex workers, to undergo regular examination.

Mrs Otuo-Acheampong commended the NGO for the initiative and advised opinion leaders to step up their efforts to fight against the virus.

In an address read for him, the Ashanti Regional Co-ordinator of HIV/AIDS, Mr Micheal Boamey, said the region recorded 16,069 cases of HIV/AIDS in 2001.

The figure represent 30 percent of the total national figure of 52,916 recorded in the same year.