Health institutions in the Gomoa District recorded 480 cases of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs), mostly gonorrhoea, between January and May, this year.

The District Chief Executive, Mr. Kow Anyanful, made this known at a forum organized by the District Population Advisory and Advocacy Committees at Mozano. He expressed concern about the high rate of STDs, including HIV/AIDS, in the district and urged the people to change their sexual habits. He debunked the notion among the youth that abstinence from sex affects one's sense of thinking and reasoning, saying: "it is not true because Catholic Nuns and priests who do not indulge in sex lead normal lives".

Mr. Anyanful deplored the activities of quack doctors whom he accused of spreading HIV/AIDS and urged the law enforcing agents to clamp down on them. He condemned the attitude of men who divorce their life-long partners and go in for much younger girls, and exhorted churches and traditional rulers to help discourage this practice, which is gradually gaining grounds in the society. Mr. Anyanful advised parents to caution their young daughters to deist from accepting old men as husbands since they may not live long enough to cater for them and their children. The Assistant Population Officer, Mr. Paul L.K. Djan, said despite vigorous and unrelenting efforts by the National Population Council and its collaborators at reaching the people with population programmes and messages, there was no corresponding change in the attitude of the public. Prophet Meritaiah Jona Jehu-Appiah, leader of the Musama Disco Christo Church, who chaired the function, said if churches lived up to expectation, there would be no need for their members to use condoms.