Accra, Feb. 23, GNA - Parliament on Tuesday sympathised with the people of Upper West Region, especially the families of those who lost their loved ones during the recent outbreak of Celebro Spinal Meningitis (CSM) in that area.
In a statement read on the floor of the House on the CSM tragedy, Dr Francis Dakura, Member of Parliament (MP) for Jirapa, called on government to immediately send CSM vaccines to the affected area. He mentioned that the Jirapa area was worst hit with nine deaths, and requested for a sustainable vaccination programme to curtail the yearly occurrence of CSM in the area.
Dr Dakura said "The inability of our health planning and delivery system to tackle head on this basic communicable disease is blight on our whole health delivery system and a serious obstacle to achieving the Millennium Development Goal."
He said the CSM cycle recurred to such an extent that it could no longer be regarded as isolated incident, and the current situation was unacceptable within the health planning and delivery system. Dr Dakura said CSM bacteria claimed lives at some particular times of the year, usually announcing its arrival by picking on victims far and between, before launching a full scale assault on unsuspecting citizens of the country.
He said "Successive governments over the years have always known this and our health planners too have got all the date on the peak times when this bacteria strikes and yet what happens every year - more of the same bad news". Dr. Dakura said that the people of Upper West and other CSM endemic areas were demanding answers as to why they were not vaccinated early enough ahead of the CSM period.
