As per the Ghana Aids Commission 2022 report, the Ashanti Region has 72,429 HIV-positive individuals living there.
Of those in question, only over 26,000 are currently receiving antiretroviral therapy at medical facilities; the uptake of antiretrovirals cannot be accounted for in relation to the 46,421 remaining individuals.
These people have either stopped taking ARV medication or are ignorant of their status.
According to Dennis Bandoh, the deputy Ashanti regional focal person for HIV/AIDS, the region had recorded 4,618 new cases by the end of the third quarter of 2023—a 2.1 per cent increase over the same period the year before.
In an interview with the GNA, he revealed that 62,835 pregnant women had tested positive under the category of Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission, with 681 of them, and 3,937 out of 51,940 persons screened under the HIV testing services category had tested positive.
According to him, some men believe that if their spouses or partners who are pregnant test negative, it means that the men are also negative.
The report’s regional HIV estimations put Greater Accra at the top of the list with 85,403, followed by Ashanti Region at 72,429 and Eastern Region at 46,339.4,353 men and 5,006 women out of 9,359 total deaths from AIDS-related causes were reported.
In the country, 16,574 new cases of HIV infection were recorded; 10,927 cases involved females and 5,647 involved men. 2,868 of them belonged to the 0–14 age group, and 13,706 to the 15+ age group.
The HIV epidemic continued to be an issue, disproportionately impacting vulnerable groups and specific areas.
