Rotary Club donates 3,000 pieces of mosquito nets to Akateng

Akateng (E/R), May 31, GNA - The Rotary Club of Accra has donated 3,000 pieces of Insecticide Treated Nets (ITN) to the people of Akanteng, a sub-district in the Upper Manya area to help reduce cases of malaria. The treated nets would be distributed to members in the 39 communities in the Akateng sub-district with a population of 20,000 people. Mr Frank Gadzekpo, President of Accra Rotary Club said the donation formed part of a national malaria campaign the club was supporting to help reduce malaria cases in the country.

He said the club had already launched the project in the Western Region where some areas had recorded severe malaria cases. He said it aims to distribute 25,000 ITN's countrywide in conjunction with Prompt Ghana, a Non-Governmental Organization. Prompt Ghana is engaged in promoting good health among children and had trained some young men to hang the nets in the rooms of beneficiaries to ensure that they were used.

Mr Gadzekpo said the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was supporting the project with a grant of 300 million US dollars to Rotary International for malaria prevention worldwide.

He appealed to the communities to use the bed nets since it was the surest way of preventing malaria and its avoidable deaths in the country. Dr Akoto Ampaw, Upper Manya District Director of Health Services, who received the donation on behalf of the communities said the most severe and complicated malaria cases in the district were reported from the Akateng sub-district.

He said the donation would help in the prevention of malaria in the communities adding that some communities in the Kwahu North District also accessed healthcare from the Akateng sub-District. Dr Ampaw said pregnant women and children who were vulnerable would be targeted in the distribution of the nets and assured the donors that the intended purpose would be achieved.

Mrs Margaret Odame Adufu, a Deputy Director of Nursing Services said 37 per cent of all cases reported at the Out Patient Department in health facilities in the region were cases of malaria which posed a challenge to public health intervention. She noted that many people were having the bed nets but were not using them with excuses of having difficulties in hanging them and therefore expressed satisfaction that this time round, Prompt Ghana would hang the nets in the rooms of beneficiaries.

An assistant to the Queenmother of Manya Krobo, Nana Esther Narteki, who chaired the function said information reaching her indicated that when the nets were given to the pregnant women, their husbands used them for fishing.

She expressed her appreciation that there were plans to ensure that all nets distributed were hanged for its purpose. The ceremony was attended by dignitaries including the Upper Manya District Chief Executive, Mr Tetteh Angmor and the Member of Parliament for the area Mr Stephen Tettey Amoano Quao.