The Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC) has revealed that about 150,000 people living with HIV have refused treatment for the deadly disease.
According to the Program Manager of the National AIDS Control Program, Dr. Stephen-Ayisi Addo, the development has presented a challenge to the national HIV epidemic control and viral suppression program.
Dr. Ayisi Addo added that refusal of treatment is one of the major difficulties the commission is facing in its bid to prevent the national prevalence of 350,000 from going up and had instead resulted in new infections.
In a meeting with stakeholders in Kumasi, Dr. Stephen Ayisi Addo also stated that various reasons contribute to the resistance from some individuals and these include fear of stigmatization, denial of status and some have also fallen prey to false claims of cure by traditional and spiritual healers which later return to the hospital in very deplorable conditions, which many of them end up dying.
He, therefore, warns the public against the resistance of medications and advises them to follow the doctor’s directions to prevent several new infections.
