The Ghana AIDS Commission has revealed that adolescent girls constitute a huge number of new HIV/AIDS infections for the year 2021.
The Director General of the Ghana AIDS Commission, Dr. Kyeremah Atuahene, made this announcement when he called on girls of the adolescent age to be mindful of their sexual activities.
The Director General blamed the disturbing statistics on the complacency and recklessness of Ghanaians.
Speaking at the 2022 world HIV/AIDS day launch, he called on various stakeholders to collaborate with the commission to prevent additional infections.
“Ghanaians have become overly complacent so far as HIV is concerned. While high-risk behaviours have become increasingly pervasive in Ghanaian society, prevention protocols are least respected by individual Ghanaians, shooting up the numbers, averaging 25,000 annually over the last five years. [Of] Utmost concern is the fact that new infections continue to occur in high numbers among our adolescent and young women. Young women and girls account for 20% of total new infections that occurred in the country in the year 2021.”
“We urgently move to address this situation of the high number of new infections. It is up to every person to take responsibility for protecting him or herself from HIV infections,” he added.
HIV/AIDS statistics in Ghana, 2021
A total of 346,120 Ghanaians have been infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, with 66 per cent being females while the rest are males, the Ghana AIDS Commission has disclosed.
The findings could be attributed to the fact that women get themselves examined more than men and charged their male counterparts to get themselves examined.