Keta records high anaemia cases

For every ten visitors to health facilities in the Keta Municipality, six are anaemic, according to Madam Perfect Titiati, Keta Municipal Health Director.

She said it was unbelievable that though the people lived between the Sea and a lagoon, the District had for some time been recording 60 per cent anaemia cases.

Madam Titiati made this known at a town hall meeting held at the local Assembly hall to engender discussions on results from Community Score Card interface meetings held for fisher folks between March and May 2019.

The community engagements formed part of a four-year European Union-funded project named 'Far Ban Bo' meaning,- 'protecting the fishing livelihoods'.

It is being implemented jointly by a consortium consisting of Care International, Friends of the Nation and Oxfam.

She blamed the situation on a number of factors including lack of adequate fish consumption and said it was disappointing that Keta and its adjoining towns and villages situated between the sea and the lagoon could not afford to have adequate fish in their meals.

The Health Director said eating enough fish, which contained iron, zinc, vitamin D and B2 with other nutrients could address the dietary deficiency, one of the causes of anaemia.

Mama Wui III, Queen of Keta, called on the people to pay special attention to their diets to ensure to keep health, saying, that should not cost them much because plants and fishes filled with nutrients were locally available.

Torgbui Lambert Yaovi Gadah, Chief fisherman, Abutiakope in an interview with Ghana News Agency on the situation said, "Some of us fishermen are tempted to sell almost all our catch to the women because we need the money to take care of a lot of things and so we're sometimes left with something little to take home for the family.

I want to also say that the anaemia cases may not be as a result of lack of enough fish in our diet but the 'light soup' that we prepare with less ingredients in addition to our inability to eat fruits."

Madam Joyceline Akos Kpordugbe, a fishmonger at Woe, said shrimps and lobsters were expensive and hard to come by at landing sites at the beach and the lagoon in recent times, with many preferring to send them to markets in Ho, Accra and neighbouring Lome in Togo to stay in business than eat.