Akyem Oda, Nov.5, GNA - Dr Yaw Okyere, Birim Central Municipal Director of Health, has advised the public to go in for Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) to know their HIV/AIDS status. He said the advantages in knowing ones status early, far outweighed the disadvantages, adding that, Anti Retroviral drugs were now available at hospitals for people who may test positive for HIV to prolong their lives.
Dr Okyere was speaking at an HIV/AIDS dissemination conference at Akyem Oda on Tuesday organized by the "Hwe Yie" HIV/AIDS Education and Health Information Project, a non-governmental organisation (NGO). He urged that people translate their awareness on the disease to behavioural change to reduce the rate of infection in the communities. Dr Benson Konlaan, Technical Adviser to the project, said over the past three years the organization had trained about 150 Community Health Nurses in the dissemination of health information methodologies in 10 communities in the Birim Central Municipality. He said preliminary results carried by the group pointed to an early sex life, 12-15 years among both sexes, adding that, poverty, peer influence and video/film were identified as likely reasons for early sex and alcohol use.
Dr Konlaan said the result also showed low patronage of condom use in the studied areas. Mr S. A. Amaning, Director, Ghana, AIDSNETWORK (GHANET), commended the NGO on efforts it was making to create the necessary awareness on the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the area. He was not happy about advert on alcohol usage on television networks and called on the authorities concerned to take steps to redress the situation. Mr Amaning stressed the need for sex education to be intensified as well as cultural practices, which could curb immoral practices among the youth to be revived. He said a lot of money, which otherwise could be use to provide development projects were now being channelled to AIDS education and called for concerted efforts from all to help fight the pandemic. Mr K. A. Anti, an executive member of the "Hwe Yie" project, in a welcoming address said statistics on the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the Eastern Region was worrying and urged that people refrain from activities that would make them "fall prey" to the disease.
