Koforidua, July 27, GNA - Mr Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, Eastern Regional

Minster, has called for a review of the use of pre-paid meters by hospitals that administered anti-retroviral drugs to ensure their efficacy.

He said the anti-retroviral drugs, according to experts, were supposed to be kept in fridges to maintain its efficacy yet some hospitals were using pre-paid meters which made storage difficult. Addressing a Pre-Implementation Meeting on the 2009 Multi Sectorial HIV and AIDS Programme (M-SHAP), for the Eastern Region, Mr Ofosu-Ampofo said the spread of the disease could be curtailed if favourable conditions were in place for the care of victims. Mr Ofosu-Ampofo said deaths through HIV/AIDS was 23 percent of total deaths last year which called for measures to be intensified to reduce the spread.

He said the high rate of teenage abortions and its attendant health problems indicated that people were indulging in pre-marital and unprotected sex and that there was the need for the intensification of awareness creation on the use condoms.

Mr Ampofo urged the municipal and district chief executives to make available the information vans for dissemination of information. He said this would ensure a more aggressive way of control to reduce the prevalence rate.

Dr Richard Amenyah, Director of Technical Services of the Ghana AIDS Commission told the stakeholders that the use of condoms was a policy adopted by the Commission to control the spread of the disease. Dr Samuel Ofori, Regional Coordinator of the AIDS Programme called on the public to embrace the voluntary testing during pregnancy at the ante-natal clinics which ensured that mothers who tested positive were managed in order not to infect their babies.

He said a pilot programme to prevent mother to child transmission at the St Joseph Hospital recorded satisfactory results adding out of the 50 pregnant women who tested positive, only three of their babies got infected during delivery.