Traders schooled on cholera

The Young and Lonely Foundation, Ghana (YLF), a non-governmental organisation, at Agona Swedru, has held a week-long seminar on cholera prevention for 300 traders and porters at Agona Swedru in the Agona West District in the Central Region.

The participants are expected to convey messages on techniques for the elimination of cholera conditions to their colleagues in the markets and other trading posts.

Speaking at one of the functions on Sunday, Mr Gilbert Kofi Germain, Executive Director,(YLF) urged traders to keep their market stalls and surroundings clean at all times to guarantee good health.

He appealed to traders and porters to always lend support to clean-up programmes organised by the Foundation, to help rid their settlements and markets off filth since, filth brought about cholera.

Mr Germain asked the participants to strive to keep healthy habits, since they were the vulnerable group, as far as cholera and other health issues were concerned.

He advised them to use clean utensils in handling foods and to refrain from “iced-water” from vendors who did not maintain high standard of hygiene; they should also desist from the practice of arranging vegetables and other food items on the bare-ground for sale.

Mr Germain said some traders and porters give their children polythene bags to defecate into and later placed them under their tables or inside their baskets while others threw the “stuff” into gutters around and advised them to stop the practice.

According to the Executive Director, his outfit intended to train significant number of volunteers to act as health educators on cholera prevention and therefore, asked the participants to promptly relay information on cholera outbreaks to the health authorities for immediate attention.

Meanwhile, the YLF in conjunction with Alliance for Reproductive Health Rights in the Agona West and East Districts would on Wednesday, Sept 21, embark on a peaceful march on the theme: “Poor Attitude of some Health Workers towards Patients.”

The march which would be attended by about 500 women from Agona West and East Districts would start from the Mandela Taxi Rank through the principal streets of the town to the Swedru Government Hospital where a petition would be presented to the hospital authorities.