Media urged to support fight against AIDS

The Coordinator for the Treatment Acceleration Project (TAP), Mr. Frimpong Addo, has urged the media to educate Ghanaians on the effects of HIV\AIDS.

According to him, it was the role of the media to educate individuals on the effect of the disease in the country, noting that although there was a national scale up exercise, the media still had a role to play.

The Coordinator revealed this, during a press conference on the treatment of AIDS, a pilot project financed by the World Bank, in Accra last Friday.

He observed that although there was no cure for the disease, there has been treatment for the disease, which would help those infected to live a normal life.

Explaining the main aim of the project, Mr. Addo noted that the programme was a public/private initiative, in which a consortium of private companies, private and mission-based clinics, community-based organiasations, and other implementing partners (IPs), collaborated to scale up HIV/AIDS care treatment in Ghana.

Mr. Addo asserted that the TAP focuses on five elementary treatments, i.e Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT), Home Based Care (HBC), Anti Retroviral Treatment (ART) and Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission,

He emphasized that ten treatment centers had been established, in four selected regions, namely the Greater Accra, Eastern, Western and Ashanti Regions, in order to accomplish the desired result.

He said these centers have at their disposal, equipment which would provide them with the ability to enhance their lives, further revealing that the World Bank was providing a $60 million grant, to be disbursed for treatment bills in three African counties, including Ghana.

Mr. Addo was of the view that the money provided, would help provide free healthcare to 75,000 people in the country.

He congratulated other Non-Governmental Organizations in the country, which had taken steps to fight against the disease.

He urged the media to make it a point, to attach importance to campaigning against the disease, so as to help protect people in the country, especially the youth, since the future of the country lay in the hands of the youth.

He also called on infected persons to seek healthcare treatment, since it would help sustain their life for a long time.