Accra, July 29, GNA - The country's HIV/AIDS cases hit 64,120 December last year and the figure is projected to increase to about 1.36 million in 2014 if urgent measures are not put in place to curb the spread of the menace.

Mr Eric Boadu, Programme Officer of the Population Impact Project (PIP) of University of Ghana, said this at a day's workshop on HIV/AIDS in Accra.

He said the rate at which the menace was spreading demanded serious measures "else the population would be wiped away by HIV/AIDS". The workshop organized by National Population Council (NPC), PIP and the Ghana AIDS Commission was aimed at strengthening the media reporting on HIV/AIDS in relation to population issues.

Mr Boadu said the total cumulative reported cases presented only 30 per cent of the estimated cases adding, "we should ask ourselves where the remaining 70 per cent were".

The most infected age group is the 24 to 49 years, which represents the nation's working force and the most sexually active. The current prevalence rate is pegged at 3.4 per cent and this, according to Mr Boadu, could be higher if unreported cases were also covered during the sentinel surveillance to get the prevalence rate The Ashanti Region had the highest number of cases of 19,330 with the Eastern Region leading in terms of prevalence with 7.9 per cent.

Mr Stephen Gray of the Policy Unit of the NPC, said low rate of condom use, high prevalence rate of sexually transmitted infections, massive cross border movements, low personal risk perception, poverty and malnutrition and negative socio-cultural practices had been identified as the reasons for the high infection rate.

Mr Gray said misconceptions about the disease, discrimination and stigmatisation, false claims, inadequate human resources, deep rooted socio-cultural practices like female genital mutilation and translation of awareness creation into behavioural change were some of the challenges undermining efforts to curb the spread by stakeholders.

Mrs Esther Apewokin, Director of the Policy Unit of NPC, expressed regret about media reportage on population and HIV/AIDS issues and urged them to deepen their knowledge on the two issues and ensure accurate reportage.

She called on the media to give priority to HIV/AIDS issues as was being done with political and other sensational stories saying, "by so doing we will all be fighting the pandemic".