“Let us create an enabling environment to motivate people to know their status and not to point fingers at those who have declared their status or look down on them since that will cause them to hide and in effect place others at risk.

 

“The public needs to support People Living with HIV and AIDS in the communities to help reduce stigmatization and discrimination,” Dr Stephen Ayisi Addo, Programme Manager at the National AIDS/STI Control Programme (NACP) has stated.

 

Dr Ayisi Addo noted the need to intensify the education on prevention until a cure or vaccine is found to prevent new infections or reduce the number of HIV-positive patients.

 

"We are calling on civil society groups, chiefs, religious, and traditional leaders, to help to talk about it in the community so that we prevent HIV infections," Dr Ayisi Addo stated during engagement with Communication for Development and Advocacy Consult (CDA Consult at Tema at a days Stakeholders Engagement Seminar, organized by the Tema Regional Office of the Ghana News Agency.

 

The event monitored by the Communication for Development and Advocacy Consult (CDA Consult) in Tema also serves as a platform for state and non-state actors to address national issues and also served as a motivational mechanism to recognize the editorial contribution of reporters toward national development in general and the growth and promotion of the Tema GNA as the industrial news hub.

 

Dr Ayisi Addo noted that, unlike other conditions, HIV was cumulative so anyone who tested positive will be adding to the numbers and over time it will become overwhelming.

 

He also advised HIV patients on treatment to adhere to their schedule because as long as they take their medication, the virus was suppressed, undetectable, and cannot be transmitted while when they withdraw the virus come back again.

 

"The message now is there is treatment so even if you know your status, it is not a death sentence," he said.

 

He noted that whereas the face of HIV had changed, the problem still persisted and there were conditions to continue to stay healthy even when one tested positive.

 

Dr Ayisi Addo encouraged people to access testing and not wait to fall sick before visiting the hospital, stating that there were about 380,000 people living with HIV in Ghana but not all of them are aware.

 

In addition, he said that people living with HIV had the same life expectancy even more than other people because of treatment.

 

Mr Francis Ameyibor, Ghana News Agency, Tema Regional Manager, said the Agencys Regional Office has shaped itself as a vanguard for industrial communication and a catalyst for change to promote national development.

 

He said with Tema as an industrial nerve of the country, it was reasonable for the GNA regional office to position itself to become the frontline of industrial communication to advance the countrys growth.

 

Therefore, he noted that the regional office of the Agency had developed systematic pillars on which pragmatic journalism hinged; including a mechanism to deepen the working relationship with its stakeholders, to ensure that both the media and the corporate world worked toward national development.

 

Mr Ameyibor said, in marketing, a product must be promoted through various mediums; hence the Agency which was strategically placed as a credible news organization must project itself in the world of business and to deepen its relationship with its stakeholders for mutual benefit to advance its prospects.