WORKSHOP ON HIV/AIDS ENDS IN KOFORIDUA (Page 20)

Story: Nana Konadu Agyeman, Koforidua

A TWO-day HIV/AIDS capacity building workshop for members of the Eastern Regional HIV/AIDS Committee has ended at Koforidua with a call on the people to show more care and support for people living with the disease to curb its spread.
The workshop, which formed part of activities of integrating care and support for people infected with the pandemic, was aimed at equipping the 70 participants from all the 17 districts in the region with the requisite knowledge to monitor and evaluate the outcomes of the various HIV/AIDS interventions put in place.
It was organised by the Eastern Regional HIV/AIDS Committee and funded by the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Ghana through the World Bank.
In an address read on his behalf, the Country Representative of the World Health Organisation, Dr Joaquim Saweka, noted that HIV/AIDS was increasingly becoming a major threat to the country’s future socio-economic development, making it a serious public health problem.
He pointed out that if left unchecked, the disease would reverse some of the important gains in sectors such as health, education and human resource development.
“For an epidemic which affects the most productive and reproductive segments of the population, its ultimate impact on the development status of any country, particularly the economy, is immense”, Dr Saweka said.
To curb its spread, he asked Ghanaians to adopt a positive attitude towards those living with the disease through care and support.
To this end, the Country Representative of the WHO asked the participants to serve as agents of change and role models and develop innovative means to bring about positive change in the attitude of the people in their respective communities.
He also stressed the need for greater partnership between the government and the World Bank as well as other development partners to come up with result-oriented strategies to help halt the spread of the disease.
“This partnership will be our contribution in achieving the Millennium Development Goal number six”, Dr Saweka said.
For his part, the Deputy Eastern Regional Minister, Mr Ofosu Asamoah, reiterated the need for the participants to develop result-oriented strategies in the fight against the disease.
“No matter how effective government policies may be, if result-oriented strategies are not put in place in our response to HIV/AIDS, human resource development of this country will be greatly affected”, Mr Asamoah stated.
“Each one of us should therefore consider how we can help to curb the spread of the disease and also provide support and care to those infected and affected”, he said, adding that such positive attitude would help reduce stigma and discrimination against them.
“We know that stigma has a negative effect on prevention, treatment and care for persons living with HIV/AIDS. The effect of stigmatisation and discrimination is so enormous that we need to work collectively to reduce it by volunteering to care for the sick and supporting advocacy programmes”, he further urged the participants.
The Eastern Regional Co-ordinator of the National Control Programme for HIV/AIDS, Dr Sampson Ofori Badu, expressed worry about the increasing rate of infection in the region, noting that new cases of infection rose from 2,667 in 2004 to 5,919 infections in 2006, adding that as of September this year there were 4,322 infections made up of blood donors, patients, voluntary testers, all below 35  years of age.