AIDS Commission to launch awareness campaign

The Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC) will, in March this year, launch a one-year campaign to ensure that at least 90 per cent of the population know their HIV status.

The campaign dubbed ‘First 90 Campaign’, forms part of the 90-90-90 global agenda set by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), which is the main advocate for accelerated, comprehensive and coordinated global action on the HIV and AIDS epidemic.

At a national stakeholders consultation on the ‘First 90 Campaign’ in Accra yesterday, the Campaign Coordinator, Mr John Eliasu Mahama, said HIV and AIDS were a cross-cutting issue in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets.

SDG’s and HIV/AIDS

The SDG 3 calls on states to ensure that people live healthy lives and also promote well-being for all ages. The target 3.3 of the goal also calls on states to ensure that by 2030, they end epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases and combat hepatitis, water-borne diseases and other communicable diseases.

First 90 Campaign
He said the ‘First 90 Campaign’, if well tackled, would lead to the effective implementation of the other two 90 goals.

According to him, the first 90 goal, which is to ensure that 90 per cent of the population were tested, would lead to 90 per cent of those found positive being put on treatment which would further lead to ensuring that the 90 per cent continued with their treatment, hence the 90-90-90 agenda.