AIDS Herbalists pledge to help fight HIV/AIDS

Traditional medicine practitioners in the Gomoa District of the Central Region would step up their campaign on HIV/ AIDS to reduce the spread of the virus in the area.

In a resolution adapted at an emergency meeting at Gomoa-Pomadze, the practitioners also agreed to make their research findings on plant and herbal medicines for the HIV/AIDS treatment available to the government for further studies.

Addressing them, Nana Seth Donkor, Gomoa District President of the Traditional Medical Practitioners Association (TMPA), said members of the association were concerned about the increasing spread of the virus in the district and promised to collaborate with the Ministry of Health to curb it.

Mr Donkor told the meeting that the HIV/AIDS pandemic had reached an alarming dimension that urgently required the active involvement of all Ghanaians, chiefs and other stakeholders to fight it.

He advised herbalists to ensure that all suspected AIDS cases reported at their clinics were quickly referred to Government Hospitals for proper diagnosis and care so that the state could record the number of people affected by the disease.

Mr Donkor said a survey conducted by the Association had revealed that more than 80 herbalists in the Gomoa District possessed herbal preparations that could help fight the virus and advised members to feel free to make such drugs available for testing at the appropriate centres.

Mr Kobina Annan, an Executive Member of the Association, appealed to the Gomoa District Assembly for logistic support to enable the association to implement its education programmes on virus.