Students advised to check their HIV status

Senior High School (SHS) students across the country have been advised to go for voluntary counseling and testing for HIV and AIDS to enable them live healthy and morally upright lives.

The students were also advised to minimise and if possible avoid the risk of contracting the HIV virus in order not to destroy their future.

This advice was given by the Disease Control Officer of Mfantseman Municipality in the Central Region, Madam Helena Tibiru, last Friday during an HIV and AIDS educational programme organised by Compassion International Ghana, a non-governmental organisation for students of Mfantsiman Girls Senior High School in Saltpond.

The programme, which was for 50 peer educators who are all students of the school, was to impact the requisite knowledge to them to enable them educate their colleagues and families on the deadly disease.

According to Madam Tibiru, since SHS students are the most sexually-active, it was important for them to know their HIV status at an early age to enable them live their lives well.

She explained that knowing one’s HIV status enables him or her to lead a careful life so as not to contract the virus while it also enables those who test positive to tread cautiously in order not to spread the various to other people.

She therefore admonished Ghanaians to routinely check their status every three months.

The disease control officer disclosed that HIV and AIDS prevalence in Ghana has been reducing for the past years and attributed it to the fact that people are becoming more enlightened about the need to know their status.

She added that 21.8million women have already died from HIV and AIDS in Africa while 90% of infants affected are also from Africa.

She appealed to the public to stop discriminating and stigmatizing against people living with AIDS because it can affect anybody.

“To reduce HIV/AIDS prevalence in Ghana, it means that people infected must be loved and accepted and given all the attention they need,” she advised.

Madam Tibiru also charged people living with the disease to stop patronising churches and healing centers and concentrate on taking their medication to stay healthy and live long.

“I’m not saying churches and healing centers are bad but we must do the right thing first because even the good Book says Heaven helps those who help themselves,” she stated.

A representative from Compassion International, Mr. Dominic Arthur Morrison, noted that Compassion International aims to deliver children from poverty and encourage care-givers and their children to go for voluntary testing to receive the needed support.

He added that Compassion International is passionate about children and has sponsored 4,520 children in the country in diverse ways.

Mr. Arthur Morrison explained that children grasp things early and fast, adding that it was in that light that his outfit is using students to reach out to the entire Ghanaian populace on HIV and AIDS education.