Minister stresses need for disease surveillance

Accra (Greater Accra), 16 Feb. '99 -

Mr Samuel Nuamah, Minister of Health, today stressed the need for a policy on disease surveillance and control for the success of the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) to eradicate killer diseases affecting Sub-Saharan Africa. "I believe that in our part of the globe, effective control and eradication of these killer diseases will be easier to achieve if the integrated disease surveillance and control adopted by WHO is effectively implemented ''. Mr Nuamah Donkor said this when he opened the final annual training course in Accra in Laboratory Diagnosis of Yellow Fever in support of EPI against viral diseases like Polio and Measles in Sub-Saharan Africa. The three-week course for 15 laboratory scientists and researchers from Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, Uganda and Ghana is sponsored by the Japanese International Co-operation Agency ( JICA) .

The course is to create a platform for participants to discuss and come out with effective means of combating the extensive global resurgence of infections. Mr Nuamah Donkor said most of the efforts on eradication should be geared towards education in the communities on sanitation, adding that ''other than that our struggle will be useless''. He said officials from the ministry of health should not be seen as workers paid by the government to do the work, but rather as facilitators who are working closely with the communities to help solve the health problem. "In view of this, the ministry will be involving district assemblies in our programmes, and I believe that by doing so, we will achieve our goals.''

Mr Nuamah Donkor suggested quick identification, prompt investigation, specimen transportation to laboratory and analysis of results as a way for effective surveillance and control of the menace of yellow fever and eradication of vaccine preventable viral diseases. He noted that the signal to act on these diseases depend on the reliability of analysis made on samples, saying '' this means that we should have a facility for reliable analysis of samples''. Dr O. Jomori, WHO-Afro Regional Virologist said 105 laboratory scientists form 14 African countries would be trained. He hoped that the benefits of the training courses should go beyond eradication of polio and must be extended to provide better health for the people.