The Ashanti Regional Director of Health Services, Dr Alexis Nang- Beifubah, has called for stronger national response to stop the recurring cholera outbreak, something, he described as “a national disgrace”.
He said it was important for all persons to accept to do the right things to keep healthy and clean surroundings.
“If one is diagnosed of cholera, what it simply means is that the patient has eaten someone’s faeces” and this must be prevented by combining public education and firm enforcement of environmental sanitation laws.
He was addressing a monthly meeting of the Pediatric Society of Ghana (PSG) at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi.
Attended by doctors, nurses and other health professionals, it provided the platform to discuss the way forward to provide more protection, particularly for children.
Dr. Nang- Beifubah underlined the need for effective collaboration between the health and education services to assist school children and their teachers to become adequately informed about the disease and what to do to avoid contracting it.
Additionally, there should be regular visits to the communities by health workers to educate the people.
Dr. Nang-Beifuba used the occasion to outline measures put in place to effectively manage any suspected case of the deadly haemorrhagic viral Ebola fever.
A Case Management Response Team, comprising doctors, nurses, National Ambulance Service and mortuary attendants had been formed to deal with any emergency.
He said they had already distributed protective clothing to the district facilities and set up Ebola isolation centres.
There is also an Ebola Task Force, which has been providing weekly updates on findings made on the disease.
This comes amid growing global anxiety over the spread of the disease that had killed more than 4,500 people, most of them, in the West African countries of Liberia, Sierra-Leone and Guinea.
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