Wa, Jan. 29, GNA - Dr. Alexis Nang-beifubah, Upper West Regional Director of Health Services, has said the fight against HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis remained a challenge for health personnel in the area. He said knowledge about HIV/AIDS in the region was about 100 per cent but expressed the regret that that had not translated to behavioural change.

Dr. Nang-beifubah said this at a three-day regional health sector performance review conference held in Wa on Wednesday. He said out of 20,545 people tested for HIV/AIDS last year in the region, 852 persons were found to be positive. At the Wa Regional Hospital out of the 13,314 pregnant women who were tested for the virus, 205 of them tested positive and out of the 1,918 blood donors screened, 279 were positive. He mentioned poor funding from the district assemblies and the perennial problem of inadequate number of critical staff as well as the aging of its staff as some of the challenges facing the health sector in the region.

"At some point, there were only four doctors working in the whole region and the absence of a regional reference hospital has also become a national imperative", Dr. Nang-beifubah said. He said infrastructure development in four of the newly created districts had been poor and many of the existing health facilities needed rehabilitation. Dr. Nang-beifubah said means of transport, especially motorcycles, had broken down in addition to obsolete equipment. "These challenges notwithstanding moderate achievement had been recorded with the help of UNICEF, district assemblies and other development partners." He said 25 CHPS compounds had been completed during the year and waiting to be inaugurated bringing the number of CHPS compounds in the region from 58 to 83.

Dr. Nang-beifubah said referral cases in the region had improved with Ghana Ambulance Service and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) providing ambulances to all the districts.