Don’t Follow So-called HIV/AIDS Healers- Ambassador

Heart to Heart Ambassador, Mrs. Gifty Torkornu has advised People Living with AIDS (PLWA) not to rush and follow up on herbalists who profess to have a cure to the disease.

Mrs Torkornu made this known while sharing her experiences at a day’s workshop for journalists drawn from the Brong-Ahafo and Ashanti Regions at Abesim, near Sunyani.

She observed that a lot of PLWAs who were deceived by herbalists ended up aggravating their situations.

Mrs Torkornu said she was among the lucky ones to still be alive after depending on herbal medicines which nearly took her life, but was fortunate to be introduced to the Anti-Retroviral Drugs that has kept her alive for many years now.

She expressed regret at the death of many of the PLWAs who ignorantly took herbal concoctions for treatment and appealed to persons within the traditional circles who claim to have found a cure for the disease to stop since their claims always turns out to be untrue and misleading.

Mrs Torkornu said such herbalists were only taking advantage of innocent and desperate PLWAs to make money because their prescriptions and treatment had never been the right antidote.

She also mentioned that the stigma about HIV/AIDS still remained a huge stumbling block in fighting the menace since a lot of people refused to be tested.

Due to stigma, some affected persons travel from their regions to another for drugs.

Mrs Torkornu expressed concern over people who kept their HIV status to themselves without disclosing to their partners/families and advised PLWAs to cope with stigma and prejudice and follow the instructions in taking the Anti-Retroviral Drugs to prevent exposing another to the virus.

The workshop which was jointly organised by the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC) and the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) was attended by about 60 reporters aimed at sensitizing them to overcome the challenges in reporting on HIV and AIDS in the country.