GAHANA AIDS COMMISSION TRAINS JOURNALISTS

The Ghana AIDS Commission has sensitized journalists in the country through a media workshop at Accra to up date them on the current HIV situation in the country. The workshop also seeks to further the theme of this year’s World AIDS Day celebration "Leadership:Reducing stigma and discrimination" .The month of November has been declared the “Counseling and Testing Month” and as such the media would help in informing and educating the public about their risk and vulnerability of HIV infection and thus encourage people to go for HIV testing to complement the on going “Know your status Campaign”. Opening the workshop the Director General of Ghana AIDS Commission Prof. S.A Amoa said the theme for this years World AIDS Day celebration is very appropriate because there is the great need for leadership at all levels to address issues including stigma and discrimination. “Stigma and discrimination occur because of lack of knowledge, fear, sin and arrogance therefore these can be through education and the media is the fore front in informing the public”. He said it was important for his outfit to organize the workshop because the role of the media was very important especially in behavioral changes.Outlinig some progress of the commission he said HIV and AIDS continue to pose significant challenge to the economic development of Africa that is Africa about 70% of the virus burden. Comparing to Ghana he said the national prevalence rate was now 1.9%. The use of condom has also increase from 28% to 33% in women and from 44% to 52% in men .110 sites have also been establish to offer anti-retroviral treatments and 18,000 people living with HIV are on anti –retroviral drugs. Prof. Amoa called on the media to support the various activities of the commission and help in tackling some of the commission’s challenging problems such as improving the capacity of key institutions implement prevention programs, mainstreaming HIV AND AIDS prevention interventions at all levels among others. We can only achieve our target if only media institutions mainstream HIV and AIDS into their media programs and play more active role in the fighting against the virus. This year’s World AIDS Day will be celebrated in December in Accra at the International Conference Center.