Health personnel attend workshop on new malaria treatment

Koforidua, Nov. 19, GNA - A workshop on the new anti-malaria drug for 70 health personnel in the New Juaben Municipality ended at the Koforidua Regional Hospital on Friday.

Doctors, medical assistants, midwives, nurses, ward assistants and orderlies attended the three-day workshop organised by the Municipal Directorate of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and sponsored by the Global Fund of the United Nations (UN).

The Medical Director of the Koforidua Regional Hospital, Dr Obeng Apori, called on health personnel to monitor each other to ensure that only qualified personnel prescribed treatment for malaria to guarantee that parasites of the disease did not develop resistance to the new drug to force a change of the drug policy.

Dr Apori stressed the need for education on how to maintain good environmental hygiene to help reduce the reoccurrence of the disease to help save money for the National Health Insurance Schemes since the disease constituted 40 per cent of Out Patient Department (OPD) cases. The Municipal Director of Health Service, Dr Benjamin Marfo, explained that, the workshop was aimed at educating the participants on the new malaria treatment policy, which involved the combination of Atesonate and Amodiaquin instead of chloroquine.

He explained that the new drug was introduced because the malaria parasites had developed over 25 per cent resistant to chloroquine. Dr Marfo said that to ensure that medical personnel complied with a standard in the use of the new drug, a treatment policy had been formulated. Dr Marfo stated that similar workshops would be organised for chemical sellers and Community Based Volunteers. 19 Nov 05