HIV & AIDS

Every year, millions of young people around the world are both infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, approximately two million children under the age of 15 are living with HIV and more than 12 million children have been orphaned because of AIDS. The number of orphans is expected to rise to more than 18 million by 2010.

As per Ministry of Health stats - of the 71,000 PWLA (People Living with AIDS) in Ghana, only 5,000 is getting access to ARV’s (Anti-retrovirals). HIV/AIDS has a profound and complex impact on the lives of young people. If we look at just one aspect of the HIV/AIDS pandemic—the growing number of households in which parents have died and where children now live alone—we see multiple impacts. Children in child-headed households are at risk of malnutrition, illness, abuse, child labour and sexual exploitation. These factors, in turn, increase the children’s risk of becoming infected by HIV. In many places around the world, the tragedy of HIV/AIDS is compounded by lack of understanding, stigma and fear. This can lead to discrimination, with young people having difficulty accessing education, work, health services and housing. Girls are particularly affected because they are more likely to drop out of school to take care of their parents or other family members infected with HIV/AIDS.

Malaria:

Malaria is the most common and deadly parasitic disease in the world. Malaria is an ancient disease. However, environmental disturbance, malnutrition and the failure of drugs once used to control the disease have conspired to make malaria as serious a problem now as it was during the first half of the twentieth century. In any given year, six to nine percent of the global population [300-500 million cases annually] will suffer a case of malaria. Most who fall ill survive after an illness of 10-20 days but 1-3% of those who contact P. falciparum does not survive and are killed.

Malaria is being recognized as the single most important cause of death in the country of Ghana. It accounts for over 40 per cent of all out-patient cases in hospitals and other health institutions and about 25 per cent of under-five mortality in Ghana. However, attempts in finding an effective control to the malaria menace in Ghana have not achieved the desired effect. Each year, the world over, malaria destroys, through premature death and disability the equivalent of at least 35 million years of healthy, productive human life. Poverty and lack of organization have frustrated Africa's efforts to control malaria's spread with low-tech means - such as spreading oil on stagnant ponds where mosquitoes breed, and distributing window screens and bed nets.