Category: Medical

Dr Emmanuel Addipa-Adapoe, a Senior Medical Officer at the Greater Accra Regional Hospital, has urged persons who are yet to receive a COVID-19 vaccine to do so to prevent them from contracting the disease.

He said although COVID-19 was no longer a public health threat, it was not completely eradicated, with people still getting infected and the virus manifesting with different symptoms.

Speaking at a workshop on vaccine uptake for journalists in Accra, Dr Addipa-Adapoe said the symptoms of COVID-19 were now similar to that of malaria.

The workshop was organised by the African Media and Malaria Research Network (AMMREN) with support from the World Health Organization and the Ghana Health Service (GHS).

‘With the new infections, it is difficult to tell if it’s a COVID infection without testing, now you may experience headaches, cough, fever and sometimes sore throat, the likelihood of a loss of sense of taste and smell are no longer the case, persons infected may sometimes experience muscle weakness,’ he s
aid.

The medical doctor said with the onset of the rains, Coronavirus was manifesting as influenza like infections and that the public needed to be alert and report to hospitals when they experienced coughs and sore throats.

Dr Addipa-Adapoe said COVID-19 was now like any other disease with the symptoms close to that of malaria and encouraged persons who experienced or suspected a COVID-19 infection to report to a health facility for treatment.

He said the vaccine was safe and an effective form of protection against the virus as it prevented the severity of the illness and deaths.

Data from the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) at the Ghana Health Service (GHS) show that presently, there are 8, 306,400 doses of COVID-19 vaccines available.

As of March 2024, 14,935,381 persons, representing 45 point five per cent of the total population have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Similarly, 11,850,978 persons representing 46.5 per cent of 36 point nine per cent of total population are
fully vaccinated while 6,889,700 have received a booster dose.

Mr. Naziru Tanko Mohammed, Deputy Programme Manager, EPI, said persons who were yet to be vaccinated could visit any of the vaccination centres to receive their jabs.

He said vaccination had conquered many childhood vaccine-preventable diseases in the country.

It helped with the elimination of Neonatal tetanus in 2011, no Wild Polio Virus reported in Ghana since 2008, no Measles death in Ghana between 2003 and 2021.

Mr. Mohammed said vaccination had contributed to a drastic reduction in pneumonia and diarrhea in children, strengthened health systems and contributed to the reduction of Under Five Mortality from 111 per 1000 live births in 2003 to 40 per 1000 live births in 2022.

A vaccine, according to the WHO, is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious or malignant disease prevention.

Vaccination is a simple, safe, and effective way of protecting against harmful diseases before contact with
them, it uses the body’s natural defenses to build resistance to specific infections, making immune systems stronger.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Mr George Kweku Ricketts-Hagan, Member of Parliament (MP) for Cape Coast South Constituency, has commissioned a refurbished delivery suit at Ekon Health Centre for the people of Ekon and its adjoining communities.

At a short ceremony to hand it over to the health authorities, Mr Ricketts-Hagan said the facility would help alleviate challenges faced by expectant mothers over the years.

Mothers, he indicated were major contributors to national growth and efforts to ensure their safety during deliveries should be prioritised.

The clinic, which serves more than 3,000 people within the area, needed a facelift for quality healthcare services for patients.

He said the healthcare centre needed a further facelift to help cater for the basic health needs of the people, students and surrounding communities to avoid travelling long distances to access healthcare.

The MP pledged his unwavering support to the people of Cape Coast and promised to complete all unfinished projects in the area.

Mr Isaac Takyi Mensah, the
Physician Assistant of Ekon Health Centre, expressed delight that that infections among pregnant women would reduce with access to their own facility, particularly the available washrooms and thanked the MP for the gesture.

Mr Mensah called on the government, NGOs, individuals and philanthropic organisations to support as they needed more logistics and equipment like a laboratory, scanning machines and blood bank to improve on their services.

For his part, Nana Kwame Adu Ababio I, Chief of Ekon, appreciated the efforts of the MP for supporting the community over the years.

He called on all to get on board and assist the community for its growth and development.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Professor Emmanuel Arhin, a geoscientist, has urged government to leverage the expertise of geoscientists and academia to address the increasing prevalence of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) in the country.

He stated that NCDs were becoming increasingly significant in the field of public health and now the leading cause of mortality and disease burden in Ghana, saying NCDs continue to affect millions of people globally.

Professor Arhin, also the Dean of the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR) Campus at Dormaa, made the statement at a public lecture on the topic: ‘Origins of Emerging Non-Communicable Illnesses (NCDs): The Concealed Perils to Public Health.’

He observed that in the past, conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, cancer, and heart diseases were considered lifestyle diseases when the environment were less polluted, however the situation has changed significantly as NCDs now affect individuals of all ages, including children.

He said statistics between 2019 and 2022 indicated t
hat majority of individuals in Ghana diagnosed with type II diabetes fell within 30-39 age bracket, representing a population of over 1.4 million.

Professor Arhin highlighted a statement made by Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) during the World Heart Federation roundtable in Accra barely two years ago that over 600,000 individuals, comprising 400,000 females and 200,000 males, were diagnosed with high blood pressure annually in Ghana.

He emphasized that NCDs, if not prevented, could lead to metabolic disorders in individuals resulting in elevated blood sugar levels, which may lead to severe health complications such as cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease and stroke.

Prof. Arhin reiterated the importance of the partnership between geoscientists and medical professionals which was long overdue.?

He assumed that reducing the rising number of dialysis cases of NCDs required acknowledging that prevention was more effective option than cure and stressed
the importance of proactively addressing the root sources of NCDs rather than just treating the symptoms.

Professor Arhin stressed the importance of creating an Environmental Disease Pattern Map for Ghana moving forward to help determine the route of exposure by analyzing food and water samples to confirm disease-types.

Additionally, human samples such as hair, nails and blood samples be collected to identify the underlying causes of NCDs to effectively combat the increasing prevalence of cases, he added.

Source: Ghana News Agency

The Deputy Director, Public Health, Bono Regional Directorate of Health, Dr Prince Quarshie, says sleeping under Long Lasting Insecticides Nets (LLINs) remains the surest way to put the nation on the edge to eliminate malaria by 2030.

He appealed to pregnant women, nursing mothers, children, and everybody to sleep under the LLNs, being distributed nationwide to protect themselves from mosquito bites, and put the nation on the edge to eliminate malaria by 2030.

Dr Quarshie made the appeal when he announced the regional mass distribution of the LLINs at a stakeholder meeting in Sunyani.

He said the region had moved from malaria control to elimination, saying, efforts being made by the health directorate to eliminate the disease would not be successful if people failed to sleep under the LLINs.

Dr Quarshie said the mass distribution of the LLNs in the region, would be held between May 23 and May 27, 2024, explaining that the campaign was a collaborative effort spearheaded by the National Malaria Elimination
Programme (NMEP) and the Ghana Health Service (GHS).

It aimed at registering all targeted households and distributing LLINs to at least 90 per cent of all the registered households at distribution points in local communities.

Dr Quarshie said the GHS and partners were training registration assistants in the region, who with identification cards would visit individual homes from April 18 to April 22, 2024, to register members of each household.

They would take information about the number of people in each household, name and telephone numbers of the heads of the family and this information would be used to collect the free LLINs at designated distribution points.

Source: Ghana News Agency

As part of efforts to help pupils of Sanso Methodist Primary School in the Obuasi Municipality to make informed career choices, authorities of the school have been inviting various professionals to engage the pupils on their line of work.

The goal is to expose the children to various professions to enable them to adopt a good career path as they go through the academic mill.

In line with this initiative, the school recently engaged a legal practitioner to interacted with them on how they could develop their aspirations and achieve their potentials in the legal profession.

The latest to be invited to the school were officials of the National Ambulance Service, who engaged the pupils on basic life support techniques.

They were taken through Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), Choking Management, and Blood Control techniques, with 250 pupils and staff of the school benefitting from the exercise.

Mr. Francis Koomson, the Obuasi Municipal Director of the National Ambulance Service, said the invitation was i
n line with their outreach programme targeted at educating students at the basic and senior high schools on basic life support mechanisms.

He also took the children through the core mandate of the Service, which is the provision of pre-hospital emergency care services to the populace, and stated that the Service also helped in public safety during national disasters.

He was optimistic that the education would go a long way to shape their ideas and knowledge on basic disaster response or first aid.

‘Though handicapped, the Service with the support of the Obuasi Municipal Assembly will continue to carry out its mandate and will speed up its efforts to offer public safety education to schools.’

Madam Sabina Yankson, Headmistress of the school, said the use of role models was a perfect tool to encourage, arouse and develop the pupils’ interest in education and as well appreciate the value of education.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Mr Baffour Kojo Ahenkorah, the President of the Renal Patients Association of Ghana, has appealed to the government to immediately save dialysis patients from death.

He said if the government says it was trying to do something then it should get to all patients involved and not just a few.

Mr Ahenkorah, speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on the latest update on the dialysis situation, hinted that he heard that Parliament had approved a new fee to be charged but it is yet to be implemented.

‘We are looking at Ghc 491.00 instead of the old fee of Ghc380.00, which is not welcome at all because renal patients will not be able to pay.’

The Renal Unit at Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) was shut down in May 2023 for a partial renovation and a lack of consumables only to reopen to patients in October at a higher cost.

However, patients and public outcry at the proposed fee increase from Ghc 380 to Ghc 765.42 resulted in the facility’s quick closure, although intensive care was being prov
ided for emergency cases.

This made the management of KBTH revert to the old fee of Ghc380.00.

Mr Ahenkorah said if the new fee approval by parliament turns out to be true and implemented even though it was a reduction from the earlier Ghc 765.42, renal patients would not be able to pay because for seven years now First Sky Group had been paying for them.

‘It wasn’t the patients who were paying the old fee. It was a company called First Sky Group. The company paid for seven years. The man paid for almost 270 people because most of the patients were vulnerable.

Even if you must pay Ghc100 a week for the next 10 years, patients will not be able to sustain it because being on dialysis is a lifetime issue. This government knows.

We would rather appeal to the government that as we suggested earlier they should put the cost of dialysis onto the National Health Insurance,’ he added.

He said the ‘Association plans to meet the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health when parliament resumes to see if something c
ould be done as too many lives were being lost due to the situation.’

Mr Ahenkorah also expressed displeasure that parliament had approved some money to the National Health Insurance to look at the needy patients under dialysis.

He said; ‘ Why is it for only needy patients since all of us under dialysis are needy? Can you imagine how I’ve been on the machine for the past nine years? I don’t even have Ghc 5 in my account. And that’s not needy?’ He questioned.

‘We beg them that If they say they are trying to do something about the Health Insurance then they should get all of us involved. Because we are paying Ghc 380.00 at Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, just as the rich,’ he stated.

He expressed disappointment at the media for letting the ‘dialysis situation’ die out, adding that more deaths had been recorded in the past few months as patients were unable to pay for their dialysis.

Source: Ghana News Agency