At the mention of HIV/AIDS, hearts begin leap in the bellies of people because of the fear and stigma that characterizes it.
Though the first HIV/AIDS cases in Ghana were diagnosed in 1986, efforts to track the prevalence were not instituted until 1990 when the Ministry of Health implemented the National HIV Sentinel Surveillance system.
At that time, HIV was so scary that people didn’t want it mentioned in any conversation. This is because anyone who had HIV had no choice but to live like that which catapulted the person from HIV to AIDS, s stage where the persons immune system becomes weak, allowing other diseases to have an impact on the person’s life.
But with the coming in of Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) for HIV infections in 2003, there has been an increasing number of Persons Living with HIV (PLHIV) who have been put on Anti-Retroviral (ARVs) which has saved lots of lives.
The US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), an organization established in 2003 by former US President George W. Bush to address HIV/AIDS and its related issues has been very pivotal in erasing the fear surrounding HIV.
For 20 years, PEPFAR has made progress toward ending the HIV epidemic by supporting treatment and prevention efforts in more than 50 countries.
This has saved 25 million lives worldwide, and more than 5.5 million children have been born HIV-free to HIV-positive women, breaking the cycle of transmission from women to their unborn children.
At a stigma campaign on HIV at Akyempim in the Tarkwa Nsuaem Municipality organized by PEPFAR, a person Living with HIV, Rev John Azumah stated that he was sacked from his church because he had HIV.
“But as we speak today, there are lots of pastors, imams, kings, and queens who are living with HIV but are afraid to declare their status because of stigma”, he explained.
Using his life as a testimony, Rev Azuma said both he and his wife were HIV positive but gave birth to four children without any of them contracting the disease. This he attributed to the availability of ARVs which helps to suppress the virus in the system thereby making it impossible to transmit the virus to one another.
“So you don’t have to be afraid in case you are infected with HIV, because it was in the olden days that HIV was scary, but today, people who test positive and take their drugs are very fit like myself. What kind of work do you think I cannot do? I can do every work because I am strong, thanks PEPFAR and the ARTs”, Rev Azuma said.
“All you need to do is to test in order to know your status”, he added.
The PEPFAR Media Specialist Dzid Kwame said PEPFAR has a vision of eliminating HIV as a public health threat by the year 2030. This is going to be done through the achievement of the 95-95-95 target.
The 95-95-95 target is a joint United Nations programme on HIV and AIDS which is targeted at getting 95% of the entire population tested for HIV by 2030, (5% of those tested are put on treatment and 95% of those on treatment get their viral loads suppressed by 2030.
John Snow Incorporated (JSI), a global public health consulting organization is working together with PEPFAR to ensure that the 95-95-95 target is met by 2030 in the Western and Western North Regions in Ghana.
The media specialist said “achieving epidemic control is a collective responsibility which behooves on all to test in order to know their status”, adding that “this is the only way one can know whether he is positive or not”.
She urged the public to avoid stigmatizing persons living with HIV, because it kills faster than HIV.
“There is no religion in that promotes brutality, stigma, discrimination, note that stigmatization is punishable by law”, she added.
According to statistics from the Tarkwa Nusaem Municipal Assembly for the year 2021, three thousand and sixty-seven people (3,067) were living with HIV in the Tarkwa Nsauem Municipality made up of nine hundred and sixty (960) males, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-five females (1, 885) and two hundred and twenty-two (222) children from xero to fourteen years.
Dzid Kwame said the prevalence rate of HIV in Tarkwa is high prompting authorities from Washington to have special attention for the Tarkwa Nsuaem Municipality for the past three years.
This has been made possible through the JSI, USAID, Marie Stopes and other NGOs like the Hope For All Foundation (HOFA).
A Senior Technical Advisor of JSI, Mr Benneh Diawuo stated there are three main causes of HIV; sex, mother to child transmission and some bodily fluid like blood, breast milk and semen.
He said 80 percent of the causes of HIV in Ghana according to research is unprotected sex, adding that “if you have sex with a person Living with HIV who has not achieved a viral load suppression, you will also be infected”.
He allayed the fears of people who feel that getting HIV is tantamount to death sentence, adding that “testing a is the only way to know your status. In case you test and you are positive, you don’t have to worry because the ARTs are available which help you to live long”.
He explained that “what the drug does is to suppress the viral load to the point where the virus cannot be detected, and at that point you cannot transmit it to anyone”.
Prior to this stigma campaign on HIV at Akyempim, PPEFAR took advantage of the International Women’s Day Celebration held at Tarkwa Roman Catholic Parish Hall to educate the public on HIV and Stigma.
The programme was organized by the Tarkwa Nsuaem Municipal Assembly in collaboration with the Golden Tree Foundation and Inspirers and Advocates International.