By Laudia Sawer
Tema, March 04, GNA – The Tema Metropolitan Health Directorate has made a passionate appeal to the Tema Traditional Council and community leaders, to help them educate residents on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).
Ms Joanna Anorkor Lartey, the Tuberculosis TB and HIV Coordinator and Focal Person at the Directorate, said without the support of the traditional leaders, it would be difficult for people to give audience to health workers to educate them on HIV and other sicknesses.
Ms Lartey made the call during the 2024 Annual Performance Review of the directorate under the theme: “Leveraging Partnerships and Strengthening Governance Systems to Advance Safety and Quality and Improve Service Delivery.”
“We plead with the Traditional Council to support us by allowing the health directorate and health officials access to the community members to educate them,” she said.
She disclosed that a total of 694 positive HIV cases were recorded in the year 2024, out of which 647, representing 93 per cent were linked to care.
Ms Lartey said they could not achieve the 100 per cent linking of positive cases to care because of the denial state of the patients, who often resort to traditional and religious care and only report to the health institutions when the sickness worsens.
She added that 99 per cent of pregnant women underwent the Preventive Mother to Child Testing (PMTCT) last year, with two infants being recorded as HIV positive.
Ms Lartey further revealed that 48 positive HIV patients also tested positive for TB.
Giving the TB screening data for the period, she stated that 7,092 persons, amounting to two per cent of the 471,864 Out-Patients Department (OPD) attendees, were screened, out of which 11 per cent were presumed to have the disease.
She added that out of the presumed patients tested, 94 were diagnosed as TB patients, representing a 12 per cent positivity rate, stating that 90 per cent of the diagnosed were put on treatment.
GNA