Features
Volta region records 16,900 HIV/AIDS cases in 2022
Participants after the health walk
Statistics of the 2022 HIV/AIDS report shows that some 16,996 persons are living with the disease in the Volta region.
The majority constituting 68 per cent of the estimated HIV population could be found in nine districts within the region, namely, Ho, Hohoe, Ketu South, Ho West, North Tongu, Central Tongu, Keta, South Tongu and Kpando Municipality.
The region further recorded 730 new HIV infections for all ages within the period and young people between ages 15-24, accounting for 12.05 per cent.
Mrs Mary Naa Asheley Anyomi, Volta Regional Coordinator, Ghana AIDs Commission/TSU gave the data during a health walk in commemoration of the 2023 World AIDS Day (WAD) in Ho, under the theme, “Let Communities Lead.”
It was organised by the Ghana HIV and AIDS Network (GHANET) in collaboration with the Network of Persons Living with HIV (NAP+) and other stakeholders to create more awareness on the HIV Self-Testing (HIVST) kit.
Mrs Anyomi indicated 72.2 per cent of the data are on lifelong Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) treatment with the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) subscribing 95 per cent.
She stated that the report suggested that at least two out of every 100 people in the region are Living with HIV with a prevalence rate of 1.50 per cent, but however said eight districts including Kpando, South Tongu, Central Tongu, North Dayi, Keta, Ho, Akatsi North and North Tongu have prevalence more than the regional rate.
She said GHANET was coordinating the implementation of HIVST in Ho, Hohoe, Ho West and Adaklu towards contributing to the global target of ending the disease in 2030.
Dr Archibald Letsa, Volta Regional Minister in an address read for him by Mr Augustus Awity, Chief Director at the Regional Coordinating Council said the region and Country at large risked losing the benefits of scientific advancement in ART if funding for drugs continued to remain fully donor dependent.
“Domestic funding for ARVs is urgently needed to sustain the treatment programme and keep PLHIV alive, strong and healthy,” as the government sets up the national HIV and AIDS Fund to counter-fund drugs for the disease.
He appealed to corporate Ghana among philanthropists to contribute to the fund as ART had averted the disease progression and AIDS deaths among thousands of PLHIV.
The President of GHANET, Mr Ernest Amoabeng Ortsin, said with the steadfastness of the Global Fund, Ministry of Health and the National AIDS/STI Control Programme (NACP), another HIVST kit CheckNow was introduced in addition to the earlier Oraquick kit.
The Focal Person of Ghana Health Service (GHS), Mr Courage Kofi Botchway urged the communities to mainstream prevention campaigns, monitoring, treatment adherence and knowledge generation. — GNA
One of the issues we have been grappling with as a nation is corruption, and it has had such a devastating effect on our national development. I have been convinced that until morality becomes the foundation upon which our governance system is built, we can never go forward as a nation.
Our traditional practices, which have shaped our cultural beliefs, have always espoused values that have kept us along the straight and the narrow and have preserved our societies since ancient times.
These are values that frown on negative habits like stealing, cheating, greediness, selfishness, etc. Our grandparents have told us stories of societies where stealing was regarded as so shameful that offenders, when caught, have on a number of instances committed suicide.
In fact, my mother told me of a story where a man who was living in the same village as her mother (my grandmother), after having been caught stealing a neighbour’s cockerel, out of shame committed suicide on a mango tree. Those were the days that shameful acts were an abomination.
Tegare worship, a traditional spiritual worship during which the spirit possesses the Tegare Priest and begins to reveal secrets, was one of the means by which the society upheld African values in the days of my grandmother and the early childhood days of my mother.
Those were the days when the fear of being killed by Tegare prevented people from engaging in anti-social vices. These days, people sleeping with other people’s wives are not uncommon.
These wrongful behaviour was not countenanced at all by Tegare. One was likely going to lose his life on days that Tegare operates, and so unhealthy habits like coveting your neighbour’s wife was a taboo.
Stealing of other people’s farm produce, for instance, could mean certain death or incapacitation of the whole or part of the body in the full glare of everybody. People realised that there were consequences for wrongdoing, and this went a long way to motivate the society to adhere to right values.
Imagine a President being sworn into office and whoever administers the oath says, “Please say this after me: I, Mr. …., do solemnly swear by God, the spirits of my ancestors and the spirits ruling in Ghana, that should I engage in corrupt acts, may I and my family become crippled, may madness become entrenched in my family, may incurable sicknesses and diseases be my portion and that of my family, both immediate and extended.”
Can you imagine a situation where a few weeks afterwards the President goes to engage in corrupt acts and we hear of his sudden demise or incapacitation and confessing that he engaged in corrupt acts before passing or before the incapacitation—and the effect it will have on his successor? I believe we have to critically examine this option to curb corruption.
My grandmother gave me an eyewitness account of one such encounter where a woman died instantly after the Tegare Priest had revealed a wrong attitude she had displayed during the performance on one of the days scheduled for Tegare spirit manifestation.
According to her story, the Priest, after he had been possessed by the spirit, declared that for what the woman had done, he would not forgive her and that he would kill. Instantly, according to my grandmother, the lady fell down suddenly and she died—just like what happened to Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts Chapter 5.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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BY ROBERT EKOW GRIMMOND-THOMPSON
