other Care intensifies AIDS campaign in Bontrase area

Awutu-Bontrase (C/R), GNA - Mother Care, a Community Based Organization at Awutu-Bontrase has intensified its campaign to educate the people in the area against the spread of HIV/AIDS. As part of the intensification programme, the organization inaugurated a twenty-five member Peer Education Group that would be undertaking house-to-house education in the town and its surroundings. Speaking at the inauguration, the chairperson of the CBO, Miss Susana Bortie said, because of the weekly marketing in the town, which attracted different kinds of people to the town, there is the need for the people to be mindful of their sexual behaviour to avoid contracting the disease.

Mr Emmanuel Nkansah, Awutu-Effutu-Senya District AIDS Co-ordinator, who gave the district's statistics on the HIV/AIDS, expressed concern about the alarming rate at which the disease is spreading in the district.

According to him, in the year 2002, 142 people had blood test and 68 made up of 32 males and 36 females tested HIV positive, while in 2003, out of 234 people that were tested, 110 were HIV positive. Mr Nkansah said that between January and September, 218 people had been tested and 87 made up of 61 females and 25 males were HIV positive.