The Ghana AIDS Commission has revealed that the number of single persons who have contracted the Human Immune Virus (HIV) continues to rise in the country.

According to the Commission, the prevalence rate of single persons carrying the virus is 3.1 percent.

This is because more and more single young women are having unprotected sex, the Commission explained.  

Dr. Stephen Ayisi- Addo, the Head of Disease Control in-Charge of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STIs) at the commission made this disclosure in an interview on Accra 100.5 FM’ mid-day news.

He further revealed that last year, the Commission recorded 19,000 infections with 5,000 being young people of adolescent age.

He explained that the majority of the young persons who contracted the disease last year were young women. 

He said another worrying aspect of the report was that many pregnant women are also contracting the disease at an alarming rate.

“More women in the country are having unprotected sex,” he said. 

He noted that research has shown that for every 100 pregnant women tested, two are HIV positive.

The research, he said showed that more pregnant women are having unprotected sex due to the fact that they can give birth without their children getting HIV-AIDS.  

He added that many of these pregnant women are not first-timers but women who have been pregnant for the third or fourth time.  

He added that the introduction of the Prevention of Mother to Child (PMTC) transmissions has given more pregnant women the confidence to come forward because they know they can give birth without their baby being infected.

He appealed to young people to continue to use condoms to curtail the spread of the disease as the commission devise campaigns to educate them.