Ghana Airports Company celebrates World AIDS Day

Mrs Doreen Owusu Fianko, Managing Director of the Ghana Airports Company Ltd (GACL), said on Tuesday that it was not enough for corporate organisations, to raise awareness on HIV/AIDS within their work places. She said it was necessary for educators, counsellors and other stakeholders to aim at ensuring, that as many people as possible were made aware of the disease and implications, in order to ensure that it was contained as safely as possible. Mrs Owusu-Fianko was speaking at a programme in Accra to mark World Aids Day. She expressed the need for an intensive HIV/AIDS awareness campaign at the Kotoka International Airport for travellers and others doing business at the facility. "We will work hard to make our airport an HIV/AIDS free domain," she said. Addressing 12 HIV/AIDS peer educators of the GACL, Mrs. Owusu-Fianko commended them for going through the basic requirement of an HIV test. Mr. Jones Okumko, Co-ordinator of the HIV/AIDS peer educators of the GACL, said the disease was now a threat to every body in society, hence the need for concerted efforts to fight the pandemic. The 2009 World Aids Day is being celebrated on the theme: "Universal Access and Human Rights." In 2008, more than 30 million people world-wide were estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS. Sub-Saharan Africa is said to contain about two thirds of all infections, despite the fact that it has just about one- tenth of the world's population.