The Eastern Regional HIV Coordinator of Ghana Health Service, Dr Emmanuel Amoah, has expressed concern about the high practice of unsafe sex in the Region.
He said the high fertility rate and new HIV infections annually were indications that many people were not practicing family planning which include the use of condoms that could help reduce new HIV infections.
Dr Amoah was speaking at a meeting of District HIV Focal Persons in the Region and members of the Regional AIDS Committee to strategize on how to improve results and coordination in the implementation of the regional HIV response strategy.
For the past three years, Eastern Region is estimated to record 100,000 pregnancies annually.
He said many pregnant women who tested HIV positive in the Region defaulted in their medication, compelling his outfit to design a strategy to follow up and identify those babies born by mothers living with HIV to place the babies on medication.
Dr Amoah called for cooperation from all stakeholders to ensure that people who tested HIV positive but stopped attending hospital could be referred back to the hospital from the spiritual and herbal centers where they run to.
He said out of 23,000 people who went for voluntary testing in health institutions in the Region, only 13,000 persons went back for their results.
Dr Amoah called on all stakeholders to work together to ensure that the prevalence of HIV in the Eastern Region was reduced from the current rate of 3.6.
Ms Golda Asante of the Technical Support Unit of the Ghana AIDS Commission appealed to the District Focal Persons to visit all prayer camps and herbal centers where PLWHIV could seek refuge.
They should have discussions with the leadership of such centers to ensure that such persons were sent back to the health centers to continue with their medication.
She urged them to ensure that they monitored the activities of peer educators engaged by the HIV Implementing Partners to motivate them to promote the sale and use of condoms by their clients.
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