Cholera cases on the rise

Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Cholera cases which stood at 1,396 as of February 18, 2011 had risen to 2,376 by March 2, 2011, with more cases being reported at health facilities in the three affected regions, namely, the Greater Accra, Eastern and Central regions.
The number of deaths resulting from the epidemic remained at 34, with the Greater Accra Region topping the list with 16 deaths and 1,670 cases.
The situation prompted the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) to convene an emergency meeting of the National Disease and Epidemics Management Technical Committee in Accra on March 2, 2011 to deliberate on the issue.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic after the meeting, the Public Relations Officer of NADMO, Major Nicholas Mensah, indicated that looking at the number of cases involved, there was the need for extra reception centres to be established to enable health personnel to accommodate the patients for treatment, since health facilities within the affected areas were congested.
Present at the meeting were the Deputy Minister of Health, Mr Robert Joseph Mettle-Nunoo; a Deputy Minister for Water Resources, Works and Housing, Dr Hannah Bisiw; the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Elias Sory; the Director of Public Health of the GHS, Dr Joseph Amankwah; the National Co-ordinator of NADMO, Mr Kofi Portuphy, as well as other top officials from those institutions.
There were also representatives from the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Information, the World Health Organisation (WHO), UNICEF, the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA).
Giving an update on the cholera situation in the country, Dr Amankwah said the GHS and other stakeholders had worked hard to contain the situation but there was still a lot to do to contain the problem.
He identified indiscriminate dumping of refuse, defecation along the banks of rivers and streams, lack of potable water, poor handling of food, selling of food near open gutters and poor personal hygiene as some of the causes of the spread of the epidemic.
He suggested that water should be made available to enable people to keep their hands, other parts of their bodies and their environment clean of the virus that caused cholera.
For his part, the Country Representative of the WHO, Dr Daniel Kertesz, commended the GHS for its effective management of the epidemic.
Dr Sory assured the nation that the GHS was doing everything possible to contain the situation.
He called for the allocation of adequate funds for the Health Promotion Unit of the GHS to facilitate its public education and sensitisation programme on preventive measures.