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Ghana: Alarming Rate of Malaria Cases in Asutifi District
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Ghanaian Chronicle (Accra)
29 April 2008
Posted to the web 29 April 2008
Michael Boateng
Wamahinso
The Asutifi District of Brong-Ahafo region during the first quarter of this year recorded an alarming rate of malaria cases, from the Out Patient Department (OPD) of the health facilities.
The Acting District Health Director, Mrs. Margaret Osei Anim, disclosed that out of the total 49,154 OPD attendants from January to March, 9,703 were malaria cases out of which 409 were pregnant women and 3,824 were children under five years.
Mrs. Anim attributed the increasing rate of malaria cases to the failure of people to sleep under the insecticide mosquito nets and keeping their environment clean to prevent breeding grounds of mosquitoes.
She continued that in 2005, out of the total 40,085 malaria cases, 1,074 were pregnant women with children under five recording 12,584 cases.
Again she stated that in 2006, out of the 93,779 OPD attendants, 34,199 were malaria cases, with 599 being pregnant women and 9,464 being children under five years, whilst in the year 2007 out of the 137,874 OPD attendants, 50,970 were malaria cases, 1,090 being pregnant women and 14,787 being children under five.
Mrs. Anim disclosed this at the celebration of the World Malaria Day, organized at Wamahinso through the collaboration of the District Directorate of the Ghana Health Service and Newmont Ghana Gold Limited (NGGL), under the Theme "Malaria- a disease without borders".
The General Manager, Environment and Social Responsibility of NGGL, Dan V. Michaelson said the theme for this year's World Malaria Day aptly dismisses the notion that malaria is a challenge for only developing countries.
According to Mr. Michaelson, the theme suggests that the fight against malaria was for all humanity and therefore requires the efforts of everybody to be successful. To him there was the need to give an opportunity for malaria-free countries to learn about the devastating consequences of the disease, for new donors to join the global partnership against malaria.
He noted that in recent years, attention has been focused on HIV/AIDS, but malaria is a threat to the health of millions of people around the world, especially in Africa, adding that malaria significantly aggravates the condition of HIV infected people and increases HIV transmission.
Mr. Michaelson said HIV increases the risk of infection with malaria and decreases the response to standard anti-malarial treatment.
He stressed that malaria was a deadly and costly disease that had plagued humanity for long and continued to haunt about 40% of the world's population, infecting more than 500million people per year, killing over a million and kills 3000 children a day.
According to him, complications from malaria, such as severe anaemia account for at least a million more deaths. Malaria takes as much as 40% of public health expenditure in its endemic areas and Ghana is no exception, stating that malaria accounts for about 40 percent of all out patient cases seen at health facilities and account for about 25 percent of all under five mortality in Ghana.
He said, Newmont believes in partnership and collaboration and it is one of the pillars of its social responsibility values to bring about sustainable development, hence his outfit's collaboration with Ghana Health Service to commemorate the World Malaria day.
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Mr. Michaelson continued that Newmont believed that investing in malaria was a cost-effective way of achieving improved health for its community members and development goals, such as eradicating poverty, reducing child mortality and combating major diseases.
He disclosed that Newmont in May 2006, distributed over 1,000 long term insecticide treated bed nets to communities around the water dam sites and the vulnerable households, and has this year donated 800 insecticide treated bed nets to be given to children under five years and also to pregnant women.
He urged the communities to make life unbearable for mosquitoes by keeping the environment clean and for those with the nets to make good use of them to reduce malaria.
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