Inter Press Service - August 25, 1999
Edward Ameyibor

Mills says AIDs cases in Ghana have risen to 440,000 since the first case was diagnosed in 1986. Of the total, 29,550 have already succumbed to the disease. Ghanian health officials have warned that, if nothing is done to reduce the spread of the disease, AIDs will become a major public health nightmare by the year 2001, with AIDs patients occupying most hospital beds in Ghana.

The peak ages for AIDS in Ghana, like elsewhere in West Africa, are 25 to 34 years for females and 30 to 39 years for males. The proportion of infected females in the 15 to 24 group is higher than for males in the same group, according to figures provided by the Ghanian ministry of health.

Unfortunately, the disease is still shrouded in mystery in Ghana. So far, no Ghanian has openly admitted the cause of death being AIDs. There is even a belief in Ghana that no richman will ever die from the disease.

In one region, where the infection rate is still low, a man committed suicide through hanging rather than bear the pain and embarrassment of being declared as living with AIDs. The tragedy followed the revelation that his girl friend was HIV positive.

Similarly, a young man in the Ghanian capital, Accra, swallowed poison "to end it all" when his two girl friends were declared positive.

"Whether young or old, artisans or professionals, we are all at risk of becoming infected," says Mills.

In Ghana, the message of abstinence has been discovered to be ineffective as the population is young.

Infact, for young Ghanians, below the ages of 18, the temptation to experiment sex increases, in addition to peer pressure, as they grow older.

The problem has further been compounded by the fact that only 13 percent of Ghana's 18.1 million population use condoms, prompting Mills to describe AIDs as a looming catastrophe, which needs urgent attention.

In Ghana, where funeral is an elaborate ceremony, deaths from AIDs could prove to be an additional burden to families, who have to buy a coffin, costing between 500,000 to 1.2 million cedis. One US Dollar is equal to 2,650 cedis. Recently the World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Director for Africa, Dr Ebrahim M. Samba, urged African countries to renew their commitment to containing the HIV/AIDs pandemic on the continent.

Africa, which has only 10 percent of the world's population, currently has 70 percent of the 20.8 million global cases of HIV/AIDs.

"Every country on the continent has to a lesser or larger degree reported cases of HIV/AIDs which everyday infects 7,500 Africans out of the global total of 16,000 daily infections," says Samba.(END/IPS/ea/mn/99)
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