The Junior Chamber International (JCI), a non-governmental organization (NGO) established to champion the needs of the youth, has made a clarion call on each and every Ghanaian to come out and speak strongly against stigmatization on people living with HIV/AIDS.

The NGO is of the firm belief that “until we stamp out stigma, all the efforts being made by the government and other stakeholders to fight HIV/AIDS will be thwarted”.

As part of activities to mark 2015 World AIDS Day on December 1, JCI embarked on Anti-Stigmatization Campaign in the Kumasi metropolis to sensitize the public on the need to embrace people living with HIV/AIDS, so as, to make them feel part of the society.

The group marched through some principal streets of Kumasi to educate and share condoms to the public for protection.

The programmes director of JCI, Mohammed Yakubu, said the message JCI wants the send is simple: “People living with HIV are not harmful to us. We can hug them, eat with them, and shake hands with them because HIV is not a communicable disease”

He noted that, “it is rather when we try to stay away from people living with HIV that the psychological effects builds on the patients and they also decide to infect more people with the virus.”

The anti-stigma index report last year shows that high percentage of people living with HIV are stigmatized at the workplace, home, and the general public.

Therefore, “there is a fundamental need for us to come out strongly and speak against stigmatization so that people living with the deadly virus will feel part of the society so as to contribute to the socio-economic development of the country,” Mohammed stressed.

He stated that, “JCI want the ministry of health and Ghana Health Service to start fighting the stigma at the hospitals/clinics because the creation of HIV/AIDS unit in our various health centres makes people uncomfortable to visit the unit because whoever enters that unit is seen to be HIV positive.”

This he said discourages people to enter the unit to seek counselling and medical care.

JCI wants a change in the description of the HIV unit to a better and acceptable word.

The Kumasi metro HIV/AIDS focal person, Alhaji Shamsu Abdallah, said HIV prevalence rate in the Ashanti Region is on the decline due to activities and sensitization programs being undertaken by the Kumasi metro AIDS committee.

He entreated the public to embrace people living with HIV/AIDS because they are no less human than those who do not have the virus.

The Kumasi metro Youth coordination of the National Youth Authority (NYA), Amponsah George Orwell, lauded the effort by JCI to fight HIV stigma He urged all to stamp out stigma “if we want to help eradicate HIV/AIDS in Ghana”.