The Acting Director of the Ghana AIDS Commission, Dr. Cosmos Ohene-Adjei, has stated that More than 142,000 Ghanaians are HIV positive but they are not aware of their status.
On Friday,4 August 2020, Dr. Ohene-Adje Speaking about stigma and discrimination against individuals infected with HIV (PLHIV) at a collaborative virtual media interaction between the Ghana AIDS Commission and the United Nations Programme on AIDS, He said: “From the recently released 2019 national and sub-national HIV estimate and projections, we realized two striking features: one is; more than 142,000 persons in Ghana are living with HIV but they do not know their HIV positive status because they have never tested”.
Furthermore, Dr. Ohene-Adjei stated: “More than 46,000, who know their HIV status, are not on life-saving treatments; that is: they do not take ARVs”.
As stated by Dr. Ohene-Adjei, 20,068 new infections were recorded across Ghana in 2019 alone.
Besides, 13,616 people passed away because of HIV/AIDS in the same year.
He said that the main factor that stops persons from testing for HIV is stigmatization.