NGO holds public forum on HIV at Kasoa

An a non-government organisation, DKT International, Ghana has held a forum at Kasoa to educate the public on HIV to mark this years World AIDS Day.

The organisation particularly stressed the importance for the public, particularly women to show interest in efforts to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the virus as it has been proven that the interventions work.

The community programme was on the theme ‘Focus, Partner and Achieve: An AIDS-free Generation.’

The Director of DKT, Mr Kevin Hugdson,  who spoke at the function said the spread of HIV in Ghana could be attributed to factors such as inadequate education about sex, unavailability of contraceptives and low levels of awareness of the disease.  

He said HIV infected people who had unprotected sex passed it on to their unborn babies during pregnancy and was one of the channels of person-to-person transmission.

Mission of the organisation

Mr Hugdson said the organisation had the objective to help  prevent the spread of HIV as well as promote accessibility to contraceptives in order that reproductive health may become a lot more safer.

He said the organisation had received support from the Netherlands Embassy which was passionate about promoting contraceptives and also the United States which had also offered a grant to back its education on HIV.

“DKT International Ghana is ready to fight the spread of HIV in the country,” he said, and called on Ghanaians to practise safe sex.

The Director of Marketing for DKT International Ghana, Miss Rosie Gbegnedji, said the World AIDS Day was set aside to commemorate the death of those who had died from the disease and in addition raise awareness of HIV and the global spread of the virus.

She Noted that many people think that HIV was under control therefore concentration on it had, waned with the result that it was affecting certain areas of the country, especially people in the rural communities.

Miss Gbegnedji stressed that the public still needs to be well-informed about the infection  in order to protect themselves.