Health News of Saturday, 5 September 2020

Source: classfmonline.com

More than 142,000 Ghanaians are HIV positive but don't know – AIDS Commission

HIV has destroyed many lives around the world HIV has destroyed many lives around the world

As many as 142,000 Ghanaians are HIV positive but do not know their status, Dr Cosmos Ohene-Adjei, Acting Director of the Ghana AIDS Commission has said.

Speaking at a collaborative virtual media interaction between the Ghana AIDS Commission and the United Nations Programme on AIDS, about stigma and discrimination against persons living with HIV (PLHIV), on Friday, 4 August 2020, Dr Ohene-Adje said: “From the recently released 2019 national and sub-national HIV estimate and projections, we realised two striking features: one is; more than 142,000 persons in Ghana are living with HIV but they do not know their HIV positive status because they have never tested”.

Also, Dr Ohene-Adjei said: “More than 46,000, who know their HIV status, are not on life-saving treatments; that is: they are not on ARVs”.

According to him, last year alone, 20,068 new infections were recorded across Ghana.

Additionally, 13,616 HIV/AIDS-related deaths occurred in the same year.

He said stigmatisation is a major factor that prevents people from testing for HIV.