Bono Region Records 844 New HIV Infections

New HIV infections is alarming in Bono, with the region recoding 884 new infections in 2022, Mr Ahmed Ibrahim Bimbilla, the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo regional Technical Coordinator of the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC) has said.

Figures show that 19,281 People are Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWAs) in the region, as at December 2022, with Bono’s prevalence pegging at 2.27 percent, Mr Bimbilla told the media in an interview in Sunyani.

About 70 young people had earlier undertaken an HIV/AIDS walk on some principal streets of Sunyani to create public awareness about the reality of HIV/AIDS.

Organised by the Bono Regional branch of the Ghana HIV and AIDS Network (GHANET), a leading Civil Society organisation in the fight against HIV/AIDS in the country, the marchers, mostly young people, held placards with inscription such as “your health is our concern, but the choice is yours” and “your self-testing is here”.

Mr Bimbilla described the spread of new HIV infections in the region as alarming, saying in the past three years, the region continued to top in HIV/AIDS cases nationwide, saying it was only 2022 that the Eastern region jumped to the top.

That notwithstanding, he said it required collective efforts to reduce the region’s HIV prevalence rate of 2.27 percent, above the country’s prevalence rate of 1.7 percent and called on everybody to support public education.

Mr Bimbilla said with the use of condoms and lubricants, abstinence from sex, and voluntary testing and counseling and other preventive measures cases could be brought under control.

According to Mr Raphael Godlove Ahenu, the Bono Regional Chairman of GHANET, the sexually active young people in the region were highly exposed to HIV/AIDS because they had little knowledge about the disease.

He said GHANET had targeted to reach out to and sensitize many of the young people in the region for them to understand and appreciate the need for them to protect themselves and also refrain from pre-marital sexual practices.

Mr Ahenu advised young girls to tread cautiously, and not allow people to lure them into sex by giving them gifts, saying that could expose them to the virus and other sexually transmitted infections.

Sex, he reminded the young people, was a reserve and consummation of marriage, and entreated them to concentrate on their books now, and avoid bad peers to build their own future.

By Dennis Peprah