Sixty percent of men who have sex with men in Ghana use condoms – AIDS Report

Sixty percent of men who have sex with men (MSM) uses condoms, according to the 2012 Ghana country AIDS progress report prepared by the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC).

The report, which spans from January 2010 to December 2011 and released by the UNAIDS today September 3, 2012 indicated that these men used a condom the last time they had anal sex with a male partner.

“The Ghana Men’s study (2011) showed that 60% of MSM reported the use of a condom the last time they had anal sex with a male partner,” the GAC said in the report it submitted to the UN agency in March 2012.

According to the report MSM contribute to HIV infection in Ghana and “From the Modes of transmission study, 7.9% of HIV incidence is attributable to MSM and their partners”.

The Commission was of the view that safer sexual practices in “this group” will reduce HIV transmission.

In a preliminary mapping, size estimation and integrated Bio-behavioural surveillance among MSM in Ghana, the GAC in collaboration with CDC of Atlanta and Institute for Global Health of University of California San Francisco (UCSF) reports, 95.7% of MSM were reached with HIV prevention programmes in the past 12 months.

The 2011 Ghana Men’s Study established that 26.3% of MSM had been tested in the past 12 months and they know their results of which 17.5% were found to be “HIV positive” even though the report was incomplete.

By Ekow Quandzie