Intensify efforts to halt AIDS- Akuoko-Sarpong

Agogo (Ash), Nov. 30, - Nana Kwame Akuoko-Sarpong, Paramount Chief of the Agogo Traditional Area in the Asante-Akim North district, has stressed the need to intensify educational campaigns to halt the continued spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

He said the disease was causing devastation in communities and there was the need for a concerted efforts by all to curb it. Nana Akuoko-Sarpong made the call at an HIV/AIDS forum organised by the World Vision and Global Movement for Children for some selected children in the World Vision operating areas throughout the country at Agogo on Tuesday.

The forum, which was under the theme, "Stop AIDS, Keep the Promise" - Treatment to all Children", was held as part of activities marking World AIDS Day which falls on December 1.

He said the Agogo Traditional Council with support from the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC) had initiated an education campaign programme to educate the people in the area on the pandemic and advised the school children to desist from pre-marital sex to avoid contracting the disease.

Mr Peter Eduful, acting Executive Secretary of the Ghana National Commission on Children (GNCC), said HIV/AIDS was eroding the gains achieved in the eradication of the six childhood killer diseases. He said adults had an obligation to protect children and called for a concerted effort to halt the spread of the disease to reduce the number of orphans resulting from the havoc of the disease.

Mr Eduful commended the Global Movement for Children for its efforts at preventing the disease from infecting and affecting children. Mr Auckhinleck Kwame Addo, Associate Director, World Vision Ghana Central Sector Operations, said the event, which would be an annual affair, was part of the World AIDS Day activities.

He said the aim was to ensure that communication and information sharing with children and youth about the HIV and its pandemic was open so that together Ghanaians could fight the disease which was fast affecting and destroying sizeable proportion of the youth and the productivity age group of the country.

He advised the children to desist from acts that would jeopardize their future and concentrate on their studies to enable them to contribute meaningfully to the socio-economic development of the nation.