The Director General of the Ghana AIDS Commission, Dr. Kyeremah Atuahene, has revealed that adolescent girls made up a huge number of new HIV/AIDS infections for the year 2021.

The Director General blamed the disturbing statistics on the complacency and recklessness of Ghanaians.

Speaking at the launch of the 2022 world HIV/AIDS day, he called on various stakeholders to collaborate with the commission to reduce the number of infections.

“Ghanaians have become overly complicit so far as HIV is concerned. While high-risk behaviours have become increasingly pervasive in Ghanaian society, prevention protocols are least respected by individual Ghanaians, shooting up the numbers, averaging 25,000 annually over the last five years. [Of] Utmost concern is the fact that new infections continue to occur in high numbers among our adolescent and young women. Young women and girls account for 20% of total new infections that occurred in the country in the year 2021.”

“We urgently move to address this situation of the high number of new infections. It is up to every person to take responsibility for protecting him or herself from HIV infections,” he added.

The statistics for 2021 reveal that 346,120 representing 34% of males and 66% of females are living with HIV in Ghana.