As I was sifting through the news today I saw an article that immediately caught my eye. It read “How Ghana Has More Than Halved Its HIV/AIDS Rate.” The prevalence rate has apparently gone down from four percent to one and a half percent thanks to a national strategy plan and AIDS commission. This is clearly something to be excited about. But as I kept reading I noticed that there was no mention of homosexuality in the country. I’ve been doing quite a bit of research on Ghanaian culture in preparation for my trip and I’ve found that homosexuality is actually illegal and very much seen in a negative light. So I found it a little strange that the article mentioned reducing the stigma attached to HIV but nothing about homosexuality. In fact I sort of started questioning whether that 1.5% prevalence rate was really accurate. I looked up a little more on homosexuals living in Ghana and most of them are afraid to come out and instead make up this sort of secret society in the country. I think this article just about sums up the perception of homosexuality in Ghana: http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=211415. I’m certainly not denying the great achievement of the Ghanaian government in reducing the HIV/AIDS prevalence rate nor am I saying that these statistics are deliberately misleading or anything of the sort. But I do wonder how many people in that 1.5% that have HIV are gay and how many others are living HIV positive but are not reported. It’s just a thought. What do you think? Feel free to comment!
Here’s the article on the Ghanaian governments success: http://www.npr.org/2011/06/20/137298597/ghana-vp-explains-how-country-has-more-than-halved-hiv-aids-rate. This should no doubt be used as a great role model for other countries on how to successfully curb HIV transmission.
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