Mamponteng (Ash), Jan. 21, GNA - Dr Kwasi Awudzi-Yeboah, Kwabre District Director of Health Services, has expressed concern at the rate at which teenage girls at Sarfo and Kasaam were committing in criminal abortion.

This, he said, resulted in the death of one teenage girl at Kasaam last year after she attempted to abort her pregnancy with some herbal concoctions.

Addressing the annual health forum of the district at Mamponteng on Thursday, Dr Awudzi-Yeboah said the girl's death happened to be only maternal death recorded in the whole of last year in the district. He said he was not happy that majority of the girls who engaged in such criminal abortions later suffered severe complications resulting in their hospitalization.

Mr Awudzi-Yeboah said in view of the dangers such practices posed to the health of teenage girls and the youth in general, the District Directorate of Health was liaising with unit committees and traditional rulers to embark on an intensive education and sensitization workshops to impress upon girls in the district to quit illegal practices. The Kwabre District, he said, recorded 55 cases of HIV/AIDS last year as against 66 in 2006 and that in 2005, the district recorded 84 cases of the pandemic.

Dr Awudzi-Yeboah attributed the consistent decline in the number of HIV/AIDS cases over the years to massive education campaign on the pandemic embarked on by his outfit and other anti-HIV campaigners. He said 85 cases of tuberculosis (TB) were recorded in the district last year as against 76 in 2006 and two children under the age of five died last year whilst the reported cases of guinea worm and cholera for last year stood at nil. 21 Jan 08