HIV/AIDS is a major problem in Ghana. It is estimated that since the disease was first detected, it has killed about 300,000 Ghanaians9. The vast disparity between the estimates and the actual number of recorded cases is normally attributed to the high illiteracy rate, low level of public awareness and inadequacy of medical facilities during the early stages of the disease in the country10. As such people were dying but nobody knew that it was AIDS that was killing them. Like Ghana, other African countries have been affected by this disease and are doing their best to combat it. Unlike Ghana, most of these countries, especially those in Sub-Saharan Africa, have been hit on a larger scale. A comparison of cumulative AIDS rates of some selected Sub-Saharan African countries in table 2 gives us a broader perspective of what AIDS has done to the continent so far. If you look closely at the table, you will realize that the cumulative AIDS data for Ghana is wrong. Though it was on record that as far back as 2002, 64,316 Ghanaians had died of AIDS, UNAIDS estimated that as of the end of 2006, only 29,000 Ghanaians had died of AIDS11. If you look at the figures for the South Africa, you would wonder whether all that you’ve ever heard about AIDS in Africa was true. There are a lot of inconsistencies with the cumulative AIDS data in table 2; however, I’m using this table as tool of comparison based on the assumption that the percentage error is the same for all the listed countries.
Though we may never know the exact number of people who have died of AIDS in Ghana or in Africa, we do know that each day, the death toll keeps rising and rising…and rising.