Ms Rosina Adorbor, the Kpone Katamanso District Director of Education, has advised pupils to shun negative peer influences that would lure them into engaging in casual sex.

She urged adolescents to avoid pre-marital sex in order not to contract HIV and remember that “prevention is better than cure.”

Ms Adorbor gave the advice at a workshop on the theme: “HIV/AIDS Alert Model among Adolescents” organised by the SOS Children’s Villages- Ghana, under their “Quality Education Now” project.

She said global data indicates that every hour about 26 adolescents, between 10 and 19 years, got infected with HIV with girls being at a much higher risk.

She said global efforts had led to a 40 per cent reduction in HIV/AIDS among different age groups.

“Adolescence is one of life’s critical transitions when experimentation, risk taking and active peer interaction is part of the development process,” Ms Adorbor said.

She said even though a lot of factors precipitated the spread of HIV/AIDS, casual sex among adolescents could not be overlooked.

Ms Adorbor said it was regrettable that a lot of adolescents had become sexually active in recent times due to negative peer and mass media influence.

She urged teachers, who are agents of transformation, not to relent in their efforts to continue with educating the pupils on the dangers of HIV/AIDS.

Ms Adorbor asked the pupils to be peer educators and share the knowledge they had acquired at the workshop with their peers, family and community.

She expressed gratitude to the SOS Children’s Villages- Ghana for organising the programme.

Mr Michael Appeaning, the Co-ordinator of the “Quality Education Now” project, urged parents to take the education of their children seriously and insist they studied hard.

The pupils were taken through a health screening exercise.