Bompata (Ash), Aug. 25, GNA - Miss Comfort Nyarko Buabeng, Monitoring and Evaluation Focal Person for HIV/AIDS programme for Asante-Akim South district, has called on the youth, especially apprentice artisans and students to desist from pre-marital sex and other social vices detrimental to their efforts of becoming successful future leaders.

She also appealed to the public, especially the youth, to take the HIV/AIDS campaign seriously and be good ambassadors of the campaign on the disease because they had the advantage of propagating the message at their workplaces to their customers.

Miss Buabeng was speaking at a day's workshop on the theme: "Abstinence and postponement of early sex: The best way to fight HIV/AIDS among the youth". It was organised by HIV/AIDS Fighters Association, a Community-Based Organisation (CBO) at Bompata in Ashanti on Friday.

She said the HIV/AIDS pandemic was a very serious problem for the government, hence the huge sums of money being used to educate the people to control its spread.

Miss Buabeng, who is also a Principal Nursing Officer, emphasised that the funds being expended on the campaign against the disease by the government could have been used to provide the needed basic amenities and therefore called on the youth to change their sexual habits. Mr Bernard Owusu-Ansah, Asante-Akim South District Director of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), noted that the disease has reached an alarming stage and there was the need for people to be careful with their sexual behaviour.

He appealed to churches to preach abstinence because the body was the temple of the Holy Spirit, which should not be defiled through sexual promiscuity.

Mrs Mary Ohenwaa Mensah, Medical Assistant for Bompata Health Centre, reminded the participants that everybody was at risk and so they must all join hands in the crusade against the spread of the disease. She urged them not to shun the company of those living with the disease because apart from sexual transmission, it could be spread through blood transfusion and the use of sharp instruments like needles, blades and scissors. Mrs Naneth Kankam, chairperson of the Bompata HIV/AIDS Fighters Association, said a more realistic approach must be adopted to halt the devastating rate at which the disease was engulfing the country's youth. She called on the members of the association to move to the remotest areas to sensitise the people on the need to abstain from early sex and casual sex. 25 Aug. 03