Media practitioners in the Upper East Region on Thursday urged chemical sellers and condoms distributors to treat their clients with courtesy that would encourage them to patronise and use them.

They appealed to organisations working towards controlling the spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic to include such tasks in their campaign activities as many people ignored the use of condoms because they felt shy to buy them.

The journalists were attending a one-day seminar in Bolgatanga on "promoting media relationship towards addressing regional population issues." It was organised by the National Population Council.

They suggested that people should not only be encouraged to change their attitudes, but also to know their HIV status and to be counselled to accept their fate in case they tested positive.

My Sylvester A. Agangmikre, Regional Population Officer said despite the awareness of the HIV/AIDS situation in the country, preventive measures were still poor. More than 96 per cent of Ghanaians were aware of HIV/AIDS, however, condom use was low and sexual behaviour had not changed much, he added.

Mr Agengmikre urged the URA radio to intensify its preventive programmes on the subject as the majority of the people listen to radio.

Mr Alosibah Azam, Assistant Regional Population Officer, said the council had adopted the policy of educating girls as a strategy to address population problems.

He said various studies had shown that women with education on the average controlled their birth rate through the use of contraceptives unlike their illiterate counterparts.

A Ghana demographic health survey, he said indicated that 93.7 per cent of women with secondary and higher education accepted media messages on family planning, while only 70.6 per cent of their illiterate counterparts did same.

Mr Azam said female education especially up to senior secondary school and beyond would help solve the population problems brought about by high birth rate, ignorance and HIV/AIDS infection.