The Eastern Regional AIDS Co-ordinator, Dr Sampson Ofori, has called on the residents of Koforidua to accept the fact that HIV/AIDS was in their community and to brace up to fight the disease.

He said the 8.6 per cent sentinel surveillance results in the municipality was double the national average and described it as dangerous.

Dr Ofori said this at a sensitisation forum for head-teachers of basic schools in the Adweso Zone of the New Juaben Municipality on the formation of Virgins and Abstinence Clubs in schools.

The forum was organised by the Koforidua United Christian Minister's Fellowship and sponsored by the Ghana AIDS Commission.

He said all the communities in the municipality had recorded deaths and called for the stepping up of the campaign against it.

Dr Ofori called on the Municipal Assembly and traditional authorities to come out with enforceable regulations that would limit the age of people to attend certain functions including wake keepings and video shows.

He also called for laws and restrictions to prevent children from having access to pornographic pictures on the INTERNET.

Mrs Lilian Baeka, New Juaben Municipal Monitoring and Evaluation Focal Person on HIV, said the Assembly was organising a stakeholders' meeting to find measures to reverse the rising HIV threat in the area.

She said the Assembly, in collaboration with the St. Joseph Hospital, had established an Association of People Living with HIV/AIDS, which would soon join the crusade against the spread of the disease.