This year’s World AIDS Day has been launched with a call for a renewed vigour and a concerted effort to defeat the disease in Ghana.
Under the theme: “End Inequalities, End AIDS, End Pandemic,” this year’s event is to remember those infected and affected by the disease, retake stock and rekindle the country’s efforts at ending the pandemic.
Performing the launch in Accra on Friday, the Director-General of the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC),Dr Kyeremeh Atuahene, said despite the progress made in the fight against HIV/AIDS, it still remained a major health challenge in the country.
He in spite of the increasing uptake of prevention, treatment and care services along with the declining trends in new HIV infections and AIDS deaths, HIV and AIDS still remaineda major public health challenge in the country.
“New infections and AIDS death are unacceptably high. AIDS is one of the ten leading causes of death in the country. So we want to use the month of November to sensitise Ghanaians to unite and fight against the HIV and AIDS epidemic.
DrAtuahene noted that Anti-retroviral treatment, pre-exposure prophylaxis, post-exposure prophylaxis, HIV self-testing and consistent use of condom offered efficient tools to end the epidemic.
On her part, the Presidential Advisor on HIV and AIDS, DrMokowaBlayAdu-Gyamfi said the theme for this year’s event was a cry to all to charge and defeat the three giant issues of inequalities, AIDS and emerging pandemics.
This, she noted, was a high bar to scale, and achieving it would stretch stakeholders to the limit, stressing that “but we are resolved to achieve all the goals we have set for ourselves.”
DrAdu-Gyamfi said the country’s national response was guided by global best principles of public health practice, including equity, fairness and inclusiveness, empowerment, effective and evidence-based practice.
“Our strategies are designed to ensure that no one is left behind. To achieve these we have invested considerable resources to ensure that most, if not all districts have at least an Anti-retroviral site,” she emphasised.
DrAdu-Gyamfi said in furtherance of the country’s national response, plans were advanced to establish an HIV fund and develop standard operating procedure for different populations, including high risk youth.
This, she explained, was in line with the principles of differentiated service delivery which had guided the national response to higher heights.