He therefore called on all stakeholders to support efforts to generate and report quality data at all levels of the National HIV and AIDS response. Mr Issahaku who said this during the HIV and AIDS data quality assessment dissemination meeting in Wa therefore commended the Ghana AIDS Commission and other partners for conducting annual Data Quality Assessments (DQAs) for both clinical and non-clinical data to improve the quality of HIV data in the region and the country at large.

He said stakeholders were aware that Ghana’s HIV response had made tremendous gains towards the achievement of universal access to HIV and Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) services. The Deputy Upper West Regional Minister said as a country, government had started to train Lay Counselors and extended HIV services to CHPS Compounds and also initiated the implementation of the ‘Treat All’ policy to make HIV services available to all.

Mr James Adu Ofosuhene, Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Officer, Upper West Regional Technical Support Unit (TSU) noted that DQAs were necessary to confirm the quality of submitted data and the actual data quality. He said the DQAs conducted over the years have highlighted weaknesses inherent in the data management systems that undermined the quality of reported data and provided recommendations for implementation to improve data quality at all levels of the National HIV and AIDS response.

“Again, the M&E plan for implementation of the National Strategic Plan stipulates the establishment of a national data quality assurance system for HIV data to be implemented at all levels and in all sectors, as one of the strategies to ensure high-quality strategic information for timely decision making and action”,  he said.

Mr Ofosuhene noted that the DQA exercise verified the quality of reported data of selected indicators for selected service delivery sites across the region and assessed the quality of data management systems to collect and report quality data.

The exercise, he said also documented some challenges with proposed corrective measures for implementation to strengthen the data management and reporting systems for their partners.

The M&E officer said as stakeholders of the national response, it was envisaged that they would contribute enormously to the key findings which would be used as a roadmap for developing an action plan to remedy the gaps identified for strengthening the data management and reporting system to improve data quality.

Mr Yakubu Dramani, Technical Coordinator, Upper West Region TSU who delivered a presentation on the key findings said despite a number of discrepancies highlighted in the key findings, the data was still highly reliable.