Sekondi, July 22, GNA- Owners of spiritual camps and healing centres have been advised to refer people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA), who might visit these places for cure to health facilities, to prevent the spread of the disease.

Mrs Olivia Opoku Adomah, Western Regional HIV/AIDS Focal Person, who made the call, expressed worry that some PLWHA visited spiritual camps and healing centres for assistance instead of going to the hospital for antiretroviral drugs to prolong their live span. She was speaking at a one-day HIV/AIDS stakeholders' workshop, organised by the Regional AIDS Committee, on Monday in Sekondi. Mrs Adomah advised expectant mothers to go to health centres and traditional birth attendants who have been trained to handle PLWHAS, for delivery to prevent mother to child transmission of the disease. She said 236 pregnant women tested positive to HIV/AIDS at the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital last year as against 26 expectant mothers in 2006.

Mrs Adomah said 1,305 adults and 73 children acquired HIV/AIDS and 45 people died of the disease in the region last year, as against 14 deaths in 2006 and 18 HIV/AIDS related deaths were recorded in the first quarter of this year.

She said voluntary counselling and testing centres have been established in all the 17 districts of the region and a total of 118 counsellors trained. Mrs Adomah said poverty, insufficient health education, low condom usage and negative cultural practices such as widowhood rites and female genital mutilation among other issues contributed to the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country.