Bolgatanga, Dec. 18, GNA - Mr. Gilbert Nuuri-Teg, the Upper East Regional Focal Person on HIV/AIDS Civil, has appealed to civil society organizations engaged in HIV/AIDS education to include counselling and testing in their programmes.

He said this during a meeting organized by Action AID Ghana (AAG) and attended by Community Based Organizationsand Civil Society Organizations. Mr. Nuuri-Teg said a lot of awareness had been created about HIV/AIDS but many people are not changing their behaviour. He said funding for the Multi-Sector HIV/AIDS Response Programme (MSHARP) HIV/AIDS would end in 2010 and the Ghana AIDS Commission was lobbying Parliament to pass a bill to establish an HIV/AIDS funding. Mr. Nuuri-Teg said the Commission would soon decentralize funding of HIV/AIDS programmes to the regional level so that activities of the programme would be effectively monitored.

The Regional HIV/AIDS Control Coordinator, Mr. Samuel Angyongdem, said the Regional Health Directorate had instituted a programme called "Know Your HIV/AIDS status." It is targeting 40,000 people in the region to go for counselling and testing and so far about 15,000 people have undergone the tested. The Programme Manager of AAG in charge of Upper East Region, Mr. Michael Lumor, said work on HIV/AIDS in the region had been relegated to the background and strategies poorly coordinated and inconsistent. He said organizations were not willing to work as long as external funding did not come their way. Mr Lumor said there was the need for an effective dialogue to achieve a coherent system to deal with the pandemic. The programme Officer of AAG, Mr. Gregory Dery, said research conducted by his outfit two years ago revealed that violence against women especially rape and forced marriage increased women's vulnerability to HIV.