The Head of the Department of Epidemiology and Disease Control at the University of Ghana, Prof Ernest Kenu, has said that cholera was smuggled into the country through a corpse during a funeral in the early years, according to what he learned.
He explained that the West African sub-region did not have the disease until a fisherman died elsewhere and was transported into Ghana for burial.
Prof Kenu stated that the corpse had been infected with Vibrio cholerae, which went undetected. People who came into contact with the body became infected, and the disease later spread across communities.
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Speaking at his inaugural lecture at the Great Hall of the University of Ghana on June 25, 2026, under the theme “Disease Smuggling: The Unseen Cargo in Global Health Security – Lessons from Cholera and COVID-19 in Ghana”, he narrated:
"At the time, cholera was unknown in Ghana and indeed West Africa. Therefore, when as a student I heard how, in the early 19th century, cholera was able to invoke the fear of God in English men and women at a time when their standard of environmental sanitation was similar to ours in Ghana, I began to pay attention to this disease. My idea was that the corpse carried Vibrio cholerae undetected. The funeral rites spread across the coastal communities. Since 1970, Ghana has reported over 15 distinct outbreaks of cholera.
"The disease arrived on its own terms. It was disguised as dignity. Cholera arrived in Ghana in a coffin—not in a car, not in an airplane. Let me show you how exactly the smuggling worked. The fisherman’s body returned, and as usual we started doing the rituals. Family members washed, dressed, and embraced the body. They ate together and drank from communal vessels. The bacteria then spread from hand to food to mouth. Vibrio cholerae entered wells, food supplies, and the bodies of neighbors," he said.
Prof Kenu emphasised that combating cholera and COVID-19 requires large-scale handwashing in schools, markets, and other crowded public places.
He added that authorities must develop early warning models, establish emergency health centers at strategic points nationwide, and deploy rapid response teams to deal with outbreaks promptly.
"We need to integrate digital surveillance, link our DHIS to the ILI Sentinel surveillance, SORMAS, public health emergency operation centers, and community reports into one real-time dashboard with automatic signal detection. We also need to reintroduce handwashing at scale—mandating it in schools, markets, transport terminals, and health facilities. The trial we carried out proved this works. The next phase is to move from response to anticipation, combining surveillance, climate, mobility, laboratory, and community signals. We must develop early warning models for cholera, COVID-19, antimicrobial resistance threats, and other emerging pathogens.
"We need to strengthen real-time decision-making through dashboards, risk maps, and automated alerts. We must support faster deployment of field epidemiology and lab training program residents, lab experts, public health emergency operation centers, and rapid response teams. If we don’t build a system that catches the unseen cargo before it becomes an outbreak, then we are not ready," he added.
The epidemiologist offered insight into how to deal with the disease going forward, "Future health security means detecting the patterns before they become an outbreak. This is the future, and this is what we are building now. There is a call to action: we need to honor the past. Disease smuggling will not stop at passport control, it ends where the system begins to function."
Watch the lecture below:
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