Over 100 die daily from malaria in Ghana

ACCRA (AFP) - Adwoa Mensah, 25 has been been married for two years and everything was fine with her till the last week of September when her daughter fell ill to malaria, which kills more than 100 people daily in Ghana.

Adwoa, a trader and her driver husband lived at Kasoa, 15 kilometres (nine miles) west of capital city Accra, with their two-year-old daughter, Akos.

Akos was feverish but the thought of hours of waiting for a doctor made Adwoa and her husband resort to self-medication.

"We gave her some pain killers and the fever subsided a bit but later in the night, she started vomiting. By the following morning, her condition had worsened and we rushed her to a local health post...she died later in the evening," she sobbed.

The 2005 Ghana Health Service (GHS) annual report stated that malaria "contributed 24.5 percent of all causes of admissions (hospitalisation) and was the highest cause of death in health institutions with a proportional mortality rate of 16.4 percent."

Official documents from Ghana's Malaria Control Programme indicate that "on the average, over 100 persons die daily from malaria at government health centres throughout the country."

Commenting, Kwamina Mensah, a physician, told AFP, "this figure of 100 persons dying daily excludes those who suffer from malaria and do not report to government health facilities and eventually die."

"As a Ghanaian, I find it very embarrassing that Ghana will be celebrating 50 years of attaining independence in March, next year, yet look at the number of persons dying because of insanitary conditions," he lamented.

The GHS report stated that "43 percent of the 8.7 million persons who reported at our facilities in 2005, that is nearly 3.8 million, had malaria."

An average of 10,400 persons consult state health facilities daily, the document said.

On how best the disease is being tackled, Mensah, said: "with over 30 percent of all malaria deaths happening to children, there is the need for a revolution to curb malaria related illnesses, admissions and deaths."

"The use of Insecticide Treated Nets (ITNs) is helping but how many can we provide free? How many people can afford them?" he asked.

Kweku Boateng, a graphic designer in Accra, is amazed by the apparent indifference of the international community, especially the United Nations, to the malaria problem ravaging Ghana.

"If there was war in Ghana, with over 50 persons dying daily, the UN would have declared Ghana a disaster area," he said.