Malaria Advocacy Campaign Launched (Page 24, 2008)

Story: Lucy Adoma Yeboah (Saturday, March 15, 2008)
DISTRICT assemblies have been challenged to critically examine their performance in the application of the one per cent District Assemblies Common Fund for malaria control initiatives to make Ghana a malaria-free country.
At the launch of Ghana Malaria Advocacy Campaign programme in Accra, a Deputy Minister of Health, Dr (Mrs) Gladys Norley Ashietey, said through an Act of Parliament (Act 445 of 1993), the government in its wisdom prescribed the use of the fund to fight malaria, which was the number one killer disease.
The programme was organised by the Ghana Voices for Malaria-Free Future with support from John Hopkins University of the United States Centre for Communication Programme and the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP).
Dr Ashietey expressed the hope that with support from other stakeholders and the right application of the fund, the assemblies would be working towards attaining malaria-free communities as well as a malaria-free Ghana.
The Deputy Health Minister noted that approximately three million malarial cases were registered in the public health care facilities annually while about 13 per cent of all recorded deaths in the country were attributed to the disease.
“Our children and pregnant women who hold the key to the sustainability of our kind are the most vulnerable to the disease,” she stressed.
Dr Ashietey explained that about 61 per cent of children who were admitted to hospitals was due to malaria and eight per cent of pregnant women in our health facilities suffered from malaria.
She said the most frightening was the fact that 18 per cent of all under-five deaths were caused by malaria while nine per cent of all maternal deaths were also caused by the disease.
The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Elias Sory, said there was the need for Ghanaians to fight against malaria, which had cost the country so much.
The Programme Manager of the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP), Dr Constance Bart-Plange, said it was unfortunate that malaria continued to be a number one killer in spite of the numerous interventions, and called on health professionals to properly diagnose diseases so as to record the correct malarial cases.
The Country Director of Johns Hopkins University/Centre for Communication Programmes, Mr Emmanuel Fiabgey, called on corporate bodies to join the fight against the disease, since it affected their workforce.
Mr Fiabgey, who spoke on behalf of the Voices of Malaria Free Future Advocacy Campaign, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), said there was need to mobilise leadership in government and civic society groups to join the fight.
The Co-ordinator for President Bush’s Malaria Initiative in Ghana, Dr Paul Psychas, said after the president’s visit to Ghana a number of distinguished personalities in the US had shown interest in the fight against the disease, which he said was a good sign.
The chairman for the function who is also the President of the Upper West Regional House of Chiefs and a member of the Council of State, Kuoro Kuri Buktie Limann IV, called for intensification of advocacy in malarial prevention.
Gifts were presented to a number of distinguished personalities who serve as “Voices Against Malaria” in Ghana. They included the Minister of Health, Major Courage Quashigah; the Chief Executive Officer of the Chamber of Commerce, Ms Joyce Aryee; and the Ameer and Missionary in charge of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission, Maulvi Wahab Adam.