The number of HIV infection cases is on the rise in Ghana’s Bono Region due to the lack of proper sex and health education for the region’s young population.
Development Diaries reports that the region recorded a record 884 new infections in 2022, according to the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC).
Bono East and Ahafo Regional Technical Coordinator of the GAC, Ahmed Bimbilla, revealed that about 19,281 people were living with HIV and AIDS in the region as of December 2022, with Bono’s prevalence pegging at 2.27 percent.
Over 350,000 people (adults and children) live with HIV, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) 2022 estimates.
Bimbilla said the spread of HIV infections in the Bono Region is alarming, adding that in the past three years, the region has continued to top the list of HIV and AIDS cases nationwide.
To address this steady rise in cases, a collective effort to reduce the region’s HIV prevalence rate of 2.27 percent, which is above the country’s prevalence rate of 1.7 percent, is needed.
Development Diaries, therefore, calls on the Ghana AIDS Commission to consider carrying out an anti-HIV/AIDS sensitisation campaign among young people.
Photo source: UNICEF
