HIV/AIDS national prevalence drops, but new infections increase

An estimated 224,488 persons are living with HIV/AIDS in the country, 2013 sentinel report on HIV/AIDS prevalence has revealed.

According to the report conducted in all the 40 national HIV/AIDS sentinel sites, though national HIV/AIDS prevalence dropped marginally from 2.9 percent in 2012, to 1.9 percent in 2013, 7,812 new infections were recorded.

The new infections are made up of 5,405 adults, and 2,407 children, Mr Emmanuel Obeng-Hinneh, Brong-Ahafo Regional Focal Persons on HIV/AIDS disclosed on Friday.

The national HIV/AIDS sentinel sites are located in 17 rural areas, and 23 urban centers, and the test is conducted in 69 antenatal clinics on pregnant women.

Mr Obeng-Hinneh was speaking at the opening session of a strategic information dissemination forum on HIV/AIDS, organized by the Ghana AIDS Commission at Abesim, near Sunyani on Friday.

He said the decrease in the HIV/AIDS national prevalence rate, was as a result of decreases recorded at 23 of the sentinel sites but however added that figures at the remaining 15 sites jumped a little.

Mr Obeng-Hinneh explained that out of the estimated people living with HIV/AIDS in the 2013, 189,931 of them were adults whilst 34,557 were children.

He said Eastern Region recorded the highest HIV prevalence of 3.7 percent with Northern Region recording the lowest of 0.8 percent.

Mr Obeng-Hinneh expressed concern that HIV cases in Wenchi sentinel site in Brong-Ahafo and Agromanya sentinel site in Eastern Region continued to increase.

Mr Emmanuel Larbi, acting Director, Research, Monitoring and Evaluation at the GAC, explained that the forum, first to be organized at the regional level was to create a platform for stakeholders to deliberate on key issues in the fight against the spread of the disease.

He said data collection on HIV/AIDS was useful for understanding the magnitude of the disease and for planning and monitoring the impact of interventions.