The Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem (KEEA) district has decided to commit 1.5 per cent of its share of the district assemblies' common fund towards the control of HIV/AIDS and other diseases like malaria.
This is to help ensure the effective combating of the diseases in the area, which has major tourists attractions.
The District Chief Executive, Nana Ato Arthur, announced this on Wednesday, at a day's advocacy sensitisation seminar on HIV/AIDS for traditional rulers in the district at Elmina.
It was organised by the National Population Council (NPC) secretariat in collaboration with the district assembly.
The KEEA district has the second highest number of reported AIDS cases in the Central region, with the Cape Coast municipality, topping the list.
The district had 95 reported cases in 2003 and from January to June this year, recorded a total of 53 new cases.
The seminar was therefore to enable the chiefs and queenmothers brainstorm as to how best they could help stem the spread of the disease.
Nana Arthur commended the queenmothers' association in the district for their commitment to ensuring that the campaign against the spread of the disease is effectively sustained.
The Central region population officer, Mr Paul Djan, expressed concern about the high prevalence rate of the disease in the region as a whole, and urged all traditional rulers to help evolve more measures to combat it.
They should for instance, help ensure the re-introduction of customary rites and practices, such as puberty rites, which were in the past, undertaken to curb promiscuity among the youth.
Mr Steve Gray, acting head of research and training at the NPC secretariat, briefed the participants, about the HIV/AIDS situation in the country and said women and girls were most vulnerable to the disease, which is projected to infect more people by the year 2014, if it is not curbed.
He said the seminar was therefore to ensure that traditional rulers, integrate messages and information about the diseases in their interactions with their subjects and initiate HIV/AIDS care programmes.
Mrs Esther Coffie, acting head of policy of the NPC secretariat, briefed the participants about the revised national population policy.
She said its main objective was to ensure that the country maintained a level of population growth consistent with national development objectives.
According to Mrs Coffie, although some achievements had been made, the policy is still hindered by some deep-seated socio-cultural and religious beliefs.
She therefore the participants to help attain the objectives for the formulation of the policy.
The presiding member of the assembly, Mr Frank Appiah, urged the rulers to lead exemplary lives for their subjects to emulate.
During an open forum, the queen mothers urged the assembly to provide them with logistical support to enable them intensify their campaign against AIDS, while one of the chiefs, said wake-keeping should be abolished, since people used such occasions to indulge in immoral behaviour.