Cabinet to meet on AIDS early in 2000

Ghana's cabinet will early in year 2000 discuss a national strategic plan to combat HIV/AIDS, which has reached 4.6-percent prevalence in the country, state radio reported. The plan, being drawn up by the Ministry of Health, aims to prevent the HIV rate from reaching five percent, Communications Minister John Mahama told Ghana Broadcasting Corporation on Monday in Accra. He said the plan would focus on ways of changing public sexual attitudes and behaviour because although public awareness of HIV/AIDS has reached an estimated 90 percent, people still have multiple partners. A recent survey among prostitutes in Accra's red light district, he said, showed 80-percent HIV prevalence. Research also demonstrates that close to half the people with HIV/AIDS in Ghana are between the ages of 15 and 29 years.