Officials of the Ghana AIDS Commission have revealed that Ghana’s working population is being lost to HIV and its related diseases.
Available statistics from the Commission proves the level of productivity lost to HIV and its related illnesses amounts to about five days in a month.
“It is not only a health issue but has socio-economic dimensions. Five days in a month is a huge loss to Ghana’s economy. If this trend is allowed to continue we definitely cannot achieve government’s ambition of Ghana-Beyond Aid agenda,” the Commission argued.
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Stakeholders in the health sector attribute the impact on human labour to inappropriate treatment of the syndrome, revealing about 170,000 adults diagnosed to be positive and 50 percent of persons living with HIV are not on anti-retro-viral therapy.
Furthermore, they admonished the public to see HIV/AIDS preventive, treatment and care services as an investment towards a country in which health propels sustainable development.
Reacting to the issues, Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei Mensah, urged the Ghana Health Service to mainstream HIV-AIDS management services in its decentralised structures.
“Regional and district directors of health services have signed performance contracts with well-defined key performance indicators to enhance management efficiency and accountability and monitoring of HIV, tuberculosis and malaria programmes,” he said.
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Meanwhile, stakeholders and communities are being employed to get involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS as the country thrives to meet the 90-90-90 ambition, a treatment target to help end AIDS pandemic by 2030.
The 90-90-90 ambition targets 90% of all people living with HIV will know their HIV status while another 90% of all people with diagnosed HIV infection will receive sustained antiretroviral therapy and finally 90% of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy will have viral suppression.