There has been an increase of HIV infection among pregnant women in the country, which is increasingly becoming a threat to achieving the 2016-2020 national HIV strategic plan.
According to officials of the National HIV control programme, there has been an increase in the Antenatal care (ANC) prevalence rate among pregnant women in the country, which stood at 1.6 – 1.8 in 2014 but has risen to 2.4 in 2016.
In an interview with Citi News, the Programs Manager for the National HIV control program Dr Stephen Ayisi Addo attributed the increase of prevalence rate to complacency among Ghanaians.”
“We have noticed that the prevalence rate among pregnant women is increasing this means there is something happening as far as new infections are concerned but if you take the general population is still 1.6. Amongst people who are high risk, like men who have sex with men, is over 17 percent. Female sex workers, because of the nature of their work is about 6 percent. We noticed that the increase is about the fact that now people have become complacent thinking that HIV is no more formidable or it is not even there again and it is not serious but the issue is very serious.”
“We have also realized that condom utilization has also reduced significantly over the past 3 to 4 years and even with the female condoms it is not patronized at all and it’s also a reason for the increase.”
“Because of all these, we are introducing different initiatives as we want to intensify the provider initiative testing and counselling which will help us achieve the (9090) target. The first 90 is to make sure that about 90 people know their status and to do this you need to test the people but you can’t just be testing anybody so the attention Will be on people who are likely to be positive so that we get them on treatment,” he added.
Dr Stephen Ayisi then advised Ghanaians to visit health centres to know their status and seek early treatment and also prevent the further spread of the virus.
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By: Neil Nii Amatey Kanarku/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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