Red Cross trains volunteers on Ebola prevention

The Western Regional branch of the Ghana Red Cross Society, has trained 72 volunteers from border communities, on Ebola preparedness and prevention.

The volunteers were drawn from Elubo, Half-Assini, Jaw Wharf, Kristan and Ampain refugee camps, in the Jomoro and Ellembelle districts.

The Western Regional Manager of the Red Cross, Mr. Matthew Boateng, said even though Ghana had not recorded any incidence of Ebola there was the need to prepare adequately for any eventuality.

The training, funded by the Swiss Red Cross, took volunteers through disease surveillance, proper hand washing procedure and contact tracing strategy.

Mr. Boateng stated that the volunteers would be deployed to the border communities, to undertake house-to-house educational campaign on Ebola prevention, so that the people would take precautionary measures.

“I am very sure that if the countries that were affected by the Ebola virus disease had taken education of their citizenry seriously on preventive measure, they would not have been engulfed in the disease to that magnitude,” he noted.

Explaining the role of Red Cross in handling humanitarian issues, he indicated that the Red Cross Society had partnered the Ghana Health Service in polio, measles and malaria vaccination campaigns, as well as public sensitization on public health issues.

He added that it had support natural disaster victims, supervised first aid to soldiers and civilians injured in wars, and civil unrest across the world.

He appealed to other international donor partners and corporate institutions in the country, to support them in their efforts to educate Ghanaians on the dangers posed by the Ebola virus disease, to prevent the country from being infested with the deadly disease.

He said more training programmes would be rolled out for other Red Cross volunteers in fringe border districts, such as Ellembelle and Sekondi-Takoradi.