The Greater Accra Regional Directorate of the Ghana Health Service says it is ready to address an imminent outbreak of Cholera in the country following the onset of rains in the nation’s capital.
Speaking on Radio Univers’ flagship health show, Good Health on Wednesday, director of the Regional directorate, Dr. Linda Van Otoo said, although the Ghana Health Service has put in place the necessary infrastructure and systems to avoid an outbreak, there is the need for Ghanaians to practice and maintain good personal hygiene.
She said, the Ghana Health Service has intensified public education against the disease to encourage behavioral change among citizens.
“Our main issue public education. Cholera is behavioural, we will talk about it but the behaviour itself must be changed by the individual. As a health worker I can tell you how Cholera can come about and what it can do, this is exactly what we doing. For people to wash their hands, it should be their responsibility, they must be willing to wash their hands but you have to be able to change your behaviour and that is what we wish that people will do,” she said.
Dr. Van Otoo further revealed that all health facilities in the Greater Accra Region has been equipped tools necessary for testing as well as drugs for treatment of patients who may report to their facilities with cases of Cholera.
She therefore advised persons suffering from any symptom of Cholera including profuse watery diarrhea, vomiting, and leg cramps to report immediately to the nearest health facility for treatment.
“What we want is that as soon as somebody has diarrhea, he should report early because it is very contagious, it goes from one person to the other. If people come early we will be able to minimize the spread”.
Cholera is a bacterial disease that is spread usually by eating contaminated food or drinking contaminated water. The disease remains a major public health challenge in Ghana, especially on the start of the rainy season.
In 2014, Ghana was hit by a massive cholera outbreak, which recorded the highest number of cases in the past 30 years.
A total of 28,975 cases, including 247 deaths, were reported from all the 10 regions of the country during the outbreak, with about 70 percent of the cases occurring in Accra.
By: Jonas Nyabor/Radio Univers 105.7MHz
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