Tackle infectious diseases – First Lady tells scientists

Ghana’s First Lady Mrs. Rebecca Akufo-Addo has called on African scientists attending the Emerging Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity Conference in Accra to deal with the challenge of emerging infectious diseases on the continent.

She believes the continent has “enough brilliant minds to deal with our own challenges” through innovative solutions.

She further noted that the 2013 Ebola outbreak which started in Guinea and subsequently led to loss of about 11,000 lives and almost 1 million infections on the continent should be a constant reminder that as a continent “we cannot afford another such devastating outbreak”.

Mrs. Akufo-Addo also said that she is mindful of the limiting effect of political instability, food insecurity, mal-nutrition, poor health care, poor economic performance and lack of energy among others on Africa’s capacity to effectively deal with infectious diseases like Ebola, Yellow fever, Meningitis and Lassa fever.

However, she stated that if stakeholders work together with a concerted and sustained effort and be proactive in providing cutting edge research and innovative solutions to infectious diseases then Africa will be on a sure way to addressing these challenges.

The 3rd African Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity taking place in Accra from 16-18 August, 2017 is a platform created by Global Emerging Pathogen Treatment Consortium (GET) in partnership with West African Task Force for Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Disease Outbreaks, African Gong and Mothergold.