Participants at the workshop
Acting Director of Technical Services at the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC), Cosmos Ohene-Adjei, has called on herbal practitioners in the country who claim to have found a cure for the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic to submit their products to testing or stop misinforming the public.
According to him, there is no known discovered cure for the epidemic, adding that GAC will be willing to partner with herbal doctors for their products to undergo the test, otherwise they must desist from making such claims.
“GAC can facilitate any herbal product to undergo scientific interrogation to ascertain if it meets international standard to cure AIDS. We cannot defend these herbal practitioners at the global stage when they don’t subject their claim and product to scientific scrutiny,” he said.
Mr Ohene-Adjei disclosed this at a day’s workshop organised by the Commission in Ho for health reporters and senior editors from the Eastern and Volta Regions.
In her welcome statement, the Director General of GAC, Dr Mokowa Blay Adu-Gyamfi, stated that the workshop is the first of such programmes lined up to take place across the country this year.
She explained that it is to get first-hand information on reporting on HIV and AIDS-related issues and called on the media to develop more stories on them in order to prevent the epidemic.
However, lack of financial resources, loss to follow-up, non-availability of lay counselors, false claim of HIV cure, among others, were captured as hindrances to ending the AIDS epidemic.
She urged the media to assist GAC by writing more stories to educate the public about the diseases.
From Fred Duodu, Ho k.duodu@yahoo.com