HIV infections on the rise in Ketu South
The Ketu South Municipal Health Directorate has urged all stakeholders to be mindful of their critical roles in ending the HIV epidemic in the face of increasing new infections in the municipality.
Mr David Agbokpe, the Municipal Director of Health Services, who made the call at the 2023 annual performance review at Aflao in the Volta Region, disclosed that the municipality saw an increase from 1.8 per cent in 2022 (220 cases) to 2.1 per cent in 2023 (266 cases).
In 2023, the Directorate tested 12,377 persons and recorded the 266 positives while in 2022, out of the 12,136 tested, 220 were positive.
Mr Agbokpe, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said a number of factors were responsible for the increase and that the Directorate would intensify efforts in ensuring the attainment of the goal of ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030.
“AIDS prevention, treatment and management are core areas to consider preventing further spread of the disease,” he said.
The Directorate would also collaborate with other stakeholders to tackle the increasing teenage pregnancy rate and drug use among the youth to forestall a bleak future for the municipality and, by extension, the country.
Meanwhile, the Municipal Director said they had chalked some successes with Tuberculosis (TB), especially in case detection, reduction in deaths of TB clients, cure rate and defaulting rate.
“TB case detection rate increased to 36.1 percent in 2023 from 32.8 percent in 2022, death rate reduced to 3.1 percent in 2022 from 5.5 percent in 2021 and lost to follow up rate reduced to 2.3 percent in 2022 from 4.7 percent in 2021.”
Mr Agbokpe said 2023 was challenging with limited resources, funds, erratic shortages of some drugs and vaccines, inadequate staff, and delay sometimes in National Health Insurance reimbursement among others.
He said despite the challenges, “our hard working and committed staff of Ketu South Municipality in the spirit of teamwork performed creditably in various service delivery areas such as clinical care, public health, health services administration and support services and finance,” and expected an even better performance this year.
The performance review meeting served as a forum to give the stakeholders in health feedback on the performance of the Directorate, its successes and challenges.
Source: GNA