Tema, – Dr Stephen Ayisi Addo, Programme Manager for the National AIDS/STI Control Programme has disclosed that most men who have sex with men in Ghana are bi-sexual, which exposes their regular female partners to risk of sexually transmitted diseases.
“We have noticed in our data that a lot of the men who have sex with men in Ghana are young and are bi-sexual, what it means is that though they practice homosexuality they have sex with females,” he said.
Dr Ayisi Addo disclosed this during the fifth edition of the Tema office of the Ghana News Agency stakeholder engagement on the topic, “workplace policy on HIV/AIDS, who enforces it: legal basis for churches demanding HIV/AIDS test from would-be partners? Role of partners of infected individual”.
He explained that as a HIV high risk population that have a prevalence rate of 18 per cent, such homosexuals that were also bi-sexual served as bridging population just like female sex workers.
“So, they get the high risk from homosexuality and give to their female partners and then they too transmit to other partners”.
Touching on the ongoing debate on Lesbians, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender (LGBT ) issues in Ghana he stressed that their responsibility as health workers was to provide care for all health-related issues that might occur from the act but not to promote it as they saw it as a private behaviour.
“As a Programme, we have the responsibility to reduce HIV in all high-risk population groups that is where it ends; we have the obligation to treat them. Our responsibility is not to promote the behaviour because we see it as private,” he said.
He stressed that, “I will take care of you because I am a health worker. As a Programme I always draw the clear lines that though it is sex and sexual orientation that is high risk, and have a relationship with prevalence, it is private.
“Ours is to deal with all consequences as a result of the behaviour, and so as part of it, we prevent by giving education so that people don’t engage in risky behaviours, but we will not promote it”.
Explaining the high prevalence rate among LGBT population, Dr Ayisi Addo said it was due to the likelihood of getting bruises and cuts in the anus during the practice of their sexual preference making it easy for transmission of the disease.
Touching on the current data of HIV infections in Ghana, he revealed that the national prevalence rate stood at 1.7 percent, among pregnant women attending antenatal was 2 percent, while female sex workers who have multiple partners was 4.6 percent.
Dr Ayisi Addo said as at 2020, an estimated number of 346,120 people were currently living with HIV in Ghana out of which more than 80 percent were females.
He added that the new infection recorded was approximately 19,000 with about 14,000 deaths in the year 2020.
Mr Francis Ameyibor, Tema Regional Manager of GNA said the l engagement which takes place on the last Wednesday of every month was a progressive media caucus platform created to give the opportunity to both state and non-state stakeholders to interact with journalists and address national issues.
Mr Ameyibor said the Agency used the platform to deepen the working relations with the stakeholders to ensure that both the media and the corporate world worked together towards national development.
The event also served as a motivational mechanism to recognize the editorial contribution of reporters to the professional growth and promotion of Tema GNA as the industrial news hub, while contributing to national development in general.
Source: Ghana News Agency
Add Comment