African leaders urged to be proactive in combating HIV/AIDS pandemic

Miss Felicia Dapaah, Ashanti Regional Co-ordinator of HIV/AIDS, has called on policy-makers and opinion leaders in Africa to be proactive in their efforts to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

She noted that the pandemic had the potential of eroding the socio-economic achievements made on the Continent and stressed the need for stakeholders to evolve pragmatic educational and sensitization programmes to intensify education on the pandemic.

“This would help create more awareness of the dangers associated with the disease among the people to enable them lead careful lifestyles to live longer.” she added.

Miss Dapaah made the call when launching Kumasi Polytechnic (K-Poly) HIV/AIDS Workplace Policy in Kumasi at the weekend.

The policy is to create awareness about the pandemic and ensure staff and students adopted non-risky behaviour that would prevent them from being infected with the virus.

She was optimistic the policy would help reduce the prevalence rate of the pandemic in the country.

Dr Benjamin Prah, Rector of Kumasi Polytechnic, said success of implementing the policy would depend on collaboration between the polytechnic administration, teaching staff and students.