First Lady appointed HIV/AIDS Ambassadoe

The First Lady, Mrs Lordina Mahama, has accepted the role of HIV/AIDS Ambassador to support Heart-to-Heart campaign and to champion the cause of persons living with HIV and AIDS in the country.

The Heart-to-Heart ambassadors, through the Ghana AIDS Commission, as part of a campaign to support the fight against HIV and AIDS, conferred on Mrs Mahama the title at her residence in Accra last Wednesday.

The Ambassadors are the Reverend John Kwashie Azumah, Minister of the Gospel at the Mount Zion Evangelical Ministries, and his wife, Lydia Azumah; Mrs Charity Owusu Danso and Mrs Gifty Torkornoo.

They were accompanied by officials of the Ghana AIDS Commission, led by Mrs Angela El-Adas, Director General; Mrs Margaret Yamoah, Communications Manager and Victoria Opokua Gyebi.

The First Lady said she was excited that she had been invited to join the campaign, and praised the ambassadors for their bravery and commitment to saving lives through HIV/AIDS awareness strategies.

Mrs Mahama expressed her admiration for the four HIV/AIDS ambassadors, who are HIV positive, for overcoming the stigma associated with the disease and launching the campaign, and to appear on TV programmes to create awareness.

The First Lady suggested to the Ambassadors and the Ghana AIDS Commission to project the campaign through local languages so as to reach many people.

Mrs Mahama also said, “Ghana AIDS Commission should make arrangements to train people who could administer the antiretroviral drug on people living with HIV and not to rely on the hospitals alone”.

She called on nurses at various health facilities to educate people living with the disease, and suggested to the Ghana Aids Commission to train selected members of churches so that they could sensitise others to HIV and AIDS.

The First Lady promised to support babies born with HIV and have been abandoned by their parents and families.   

The Director General of GAC, Mrs Angela El-Adas, recounted that President John Dramani Mahama was committed to making antiretroviral drug free for people living with HIV when he launched the campaign in November 2011.

She appealed to the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service to ask health centres to stop charging GH¢5 on the drug.

Mrs El-Adas said the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS had stopped providing test kits for the commission.

She explained that this,coupled with the delay in the release of funds from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, was a challenge that the commission was seeking to address.

The ambassadors took turns to share their experiences with the First Lady, as well as the challenges they faced.

Rev. Azuma and his wife, Mrs Lydia Azuma, recounted how they dealt with threats from the community, especially family members, when they first declared that they were HIV positive.

A former Fire Service Trainee, Gifty Torkornoo, described how she overcame stigma at church, saying “It was not easy going to church. Everybody was staring at me and that was the first stigma I had.

Mrs Charity Owusu Danso, an AIDS ambassador, said, “The campaign has reduced much of the stigmatisation. I am doing the campaign not for money, but to save somebody.” she said.

According to the ambassadors, anytime doctors embarked on strike, it affected the handling of people living with HIV/AIDS.

They expressed concern that  some pastors were demanding HIV/AIDS test before blessing marriages and others were asking people living with HIV and AIDS to stop using the antiretroviral drug and to seek deliverance from churches. — GNA