Denkyembour District AIDS Committee Holds Committee Meeting for 2022
Posted by Elvis Offei-Bekoe - 6th July, 2022
On Wednesday 6th July 2022, the District AIDS Committee of the Denkyembour District Assembly held its first meeting for the year 2022 to deliberate on issues with regards to HIV/AIDS in the district. The Ghana AIDS Committee Act 938 clearly states the mandate of the committee which is mainly to provide advocacy for HIV and AIDS prevention and control at the District level and also provide leadership in district planning and coordination, supervision and support of the HIV and AIDS program.
The District Coordinating Director; Alhaji Shamrock Abdulai Gafaru took the newly formed committee through the oath of office, oath of secrecy and the official oath to inaugurate them as substantial members of the District AIDS Committee. Honourable Seth Birikorang Ofosu; the District Chief Executive and the chairman for the committee welcomed all members and invitees to the meeting. He mentioned that it was very important to meet as committee members and discuss issues of such nature.
The Regional Focal Person for HIV; Mr Ebenezer Appiah Agyekum Abrokwah took the house through some regional statistics of cases of HIV in the year 2020. He began his presentation by giving some functions of the Ghana AIDS Commission and some functions of the District Committee. He mentioned that the Eastern Region recorded the second highest number of positive cases per population when it comes to HIV. In the year 2020, about 30,000 females, 13,988 males and about 3,800 children were infected with HIV. In the Denkyembour District, there were 1586 positive cases of HIV for the year 2020 out of which 1,022 were female and 436 male and 126 children. He mentioned that Denkyembour was the second highest when it comes to testing with an ART coverage of 85%.
The District Focal Person for HIV; Mrs Mabel Twumwaa Acheampong also gave the activity report for 2022 and the planned activities for 2022. She mentioned that for the year 2021, the district was able to conduct one District AIDS committee meeting, one DRMT meeting, and payments of all allowances and celebration of world AIDS day. The world AIDS day which was celebrated under the theme ‘Ending Inequalities, End AIDS, End Epidemics’ saw a lot of activities such as sensitization on HIV/AIDS, HIV testing and counselling and condom contribution. Sensitization also occurred in six communities where participants were educated on the causes and symptoms of HIV/AIDS, prevention, Parent to Mother Transmission amongst others.
The presentation also stressed on the data for Mother-to-Child Transmission for January to May 2022. She mentioned that out of 968 pregnant mothers have been given Anti-Natal Care out of a targeted 3146 for the year. Out of the number, 24 of them tested positive for HIV and 9 tested for Syphilis and all of them have been put on treatment. Also with the routine testing apart from pregnant women, a total of 112 have tested positive out of 1690 tested for the period under review. 80 of them being female and 32 being male and all of them have been linked into care.
The focal person then mentioned that for the year 2022 there would be organization of DAC and DRMT meetings. The committee would also encourage people to know their status by testing and undertake community outreaches. There would also be advocacy engagements with religions and traditional leaders during their meetings, visitation to selected prayer camps and herbal centers and sensitization for Assembly members during a General Assembly meeting.