The Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG ) has held an engagement meeting with media houses accross the country to discuss and to enlighten them on the HIV/TB community Systems strengthening program.
In a presentation made at Crystal Palm Hotel in Accra, the Senior programs Manager of CHAG, Benjamin Cheabu said the essence of the engagement was to bring all in the media space to an appreciation of the HIV/TB community systems strengthening program.
According to him,the HIV/TB Community Strengthening Program was a program that complements the effort of the government of Ghana through the ministry of health, the Ghana health service and its partners, the national Aids control program, the national TB program and all those who support the country's health systems.
He disclosed that, the community systems strengthening has enjoyed tremendous support from other community actors most of whom are community based organizations or Non- Governmental Organizations also known as Civil Society Organizations and from persons living with and affected by HIV and TB.
He added that, the community strengthening systems intervention was a collection of many countries around the world who since the year 2021 found the need to bring concerted and collective efforts to support countries in the sub Saharan Africa, Asia and areas around the world where HIV and TB are of a particular concern of which Ghana at the time was privileged to be the first country to have received the Global fund grant.
Mr Cheabu revealed that, when talking about HIV/TB, the CHAG community strengthening systems has been working closely with persons living with and affected by the disease towards the advancement of a particular course which is as a result of a particular health condition.
He said persons living with and affected by HIV and TB leaves within a geographical space where there are several others actors, entities and opportunities that can leverage to ensure that the live their lives like any other person.
He further explained that, the systems under the CHAG community strengthening was to compress the health systems as they have them including the many hospitals, clinics and dispensaries that dotted across the country.
Mr. Cheabu noted with concern that, their formal health systems alone can not help them to support the persons living with and affected by HIV and TB, a reason for which the community strengthening systems came into being.
He however disclosed that since the introduction of the Anti Retroviral drugs in the year 2000, the drugs has been working to bring persons living with HIV back on track to live their lives like anybody else and said, the Global fund since 2002 took the fundamental step to move them to that trajectory to ensure that the quality of life of persons living with HIV do not progress to AIDS.
According to statistics shared at the presentation, the HIV/ TB testing and treatment cascade Ghana as at 2021 revealed that 88% of the people living with HIV knows their status out which 79% of them are receiving treatment with 79% of them being virally suppressed.
The distribution of new HIV infections by population group and sex between the ages of 14- 49 years in western and Central Africa shows that 28% of persons infected newly are sex workers and sex partners of all key populations with 14% of them being Gay men and other men who have sex with men.
On drivers of stigma and discrimination, speakers upon speakers reiterated the fact that: Negative attitudes, fear, beliefs, lack of awareness about both the condition itself and stigma, inability to clinically manage the condition and institutional procedures or practices within the health systems undermines access to diagnosis, treatment and successful health outcomes and so, the community strengthening systems has organized stigma and discrimination reduction training in 20 health facilities, community led monitoring, advocacy and feedback, community peer paralegals, psychosocial counselors and Pro bono lawyers support.
The media was called upon to play a role in the CHAG community strengthening systems program to enable them reach out to the many people living with and affected by HIV / TB.
The CHAG community strengthening systems is support largely by the Global fund society to fight HIV, TB and Malaria.
Kumatey Gorden
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