Hospital Trying to Contain Cholera

Officials at the District Hospital at Cape Coast are making efforts to contain an outbreak of cholera following thirty reported new cases in the midst of the acute water shortage facing the area.

Dr. Yaw Ofori Yeboah, the Municipal Director of Health Services, announced this in an interview with GNA in Cape Coast on Tuesday.

He said though the Hospital has been recording "perennial" cholera cases over the years, the situation has now become alarming in view of the water crisis.

Dr. Yeboah said 12 cases were recorded at the Hospital on May 5 and May 6, while 18 cases were recorded between January and March, but there are no deaths so far.

He said most of the new the cases were from Komenda, with a few from within Cape Coast, but gave the assurance that the regional health directorate has supplied enough intravenous infusion to the unit to help contain the outbreak.

Dr. Yeboah called on the public to boil drinking water since people use water from all types of sources and further advised food vendors to sell under hygienic conditions to prevent contamination.

He said his outfit has intensified public health education, particularly in the affected communities, on the need to observe good personal hygiene and improve upon their environmental sanitation.

Dr. Yeboah appealed to the Cape Coast Municipal Assembly to initiate pragmatic measures to improve upon the water supply situation to avert any health crisis.

He commended the regional fire service for supplying water to health centres in the municipality and called on other organisations to emulate the gesture.

The water crisis, which hit Cape Coast and its surrounding towns, worsened a month later when the 'Kakum' river that flows into the Brimsu dam, dried up, resulting in a halt in the production and distribution of water by the Ghana Water Company Limited.

Last year, a total of 832 Cholera cases with seven deaths were recorded at the Hospital with 392 of the cases coming from Komenda.