Programmes Manager of the National STIs and AIDS Control Programme (NACP), Dr Stephen Ayisi Addo, has revealed that a total of 7,699 children tested positive for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in 2020.
Mr Ayisi Addo, in an interview with the media, also disclosed that 443 new HIV cases were recorded in 2021 among children within the same age bracket.
Giving a breakdown of the children from 10-19 living with the virus were 22,754 in 2020, while new infections that occurred in 2021 among the same group were 1,811, with 718 associated deaths.
He further added that a total of 23,495 children aged 14 and below tested positive for HIV within the first six months of 2021.
According to Dr Addo, the HIV cases recorded among these minors are cases of mother-to-child transmissions, a situation he describes as worrying.
He said, “In fact, of the 14% of mothers whom we have tested and are positive, we are finding their children to be positive, which means that they were left unnoticed. We dug further and realised that some of those mothers did not go to ANC, and so they did not receive the treatment to prevent transmission to their children.”
“This is not good because most of these children got it from their mothers. They were mainly mother-to-child transmissions and that is something we have to avoid,” the programmes manager added.
Mr Ayisi Addo has therefore encouraged pregnant women to get tested for HIV during antenatal clinics (ANC).
Patients who test positive, he said, will be put on treatment to prevent the transmission of the disease to their unborn children.
Mr Ayisi Addo attributed HIV infection cases in children in the adolescent stage to indiscriminate sex.
He mentioned some of the factors that predisposed adolescents to HIV as peer influence, early sex, promiscuity, substance use (alcoholism) and ignorance.
With children contracting HIV, the NACP Programmes Manager fears the fight to end “ the HIV epidemic will not be possible because of the likelihood of those children growing tired of taking their medication and, therefore, becoming the next generation to create resistance”.
He, thus, called for more robust measures to tackle the spread of the virus.
Source: The Independent Ghana| Stella Amoyaw