THE government recently announced a major initiative to eradicate malaria in the country.
The exercise, which involves the campaign to keep a clean environment in all communities in the country, is being undertaken by the National Malaria Control Programme of the Ministry of Health (MOH), in collaboration with the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and Zoomlion Ghana Limited, a private waste management company.
The Minister of Health, Dr George Yankey, said during his vetting by the Appointments Committee of Parliament that the government was determined to initiate a programme to eradicate malaria.
The government has since introduced new schemes to help in the fight against malaria. Mass mosquito spraying exercises have begun in all parts of the country, spearheaded by Zoomlion, while insecticide-treated nets are being sold at subsidised prices and anti-malarial medicines are also being given to pregnant women.
Under the programme, indoor residual spraying exercises are to be carried out to eliminate mosquitoes.
Malaria, like many other diseases, is not only a health problem but creates social and economic problems as well.
The outpatient departments of all health facilities record high attendance rate for malarial cases in both adults and children. The health bill for the treatment of malaria is very high, while people infected with the disease are immobilised for days. The disease also causes unavoidable deaths.
The Food and Drugs Board (FDB) conducts regular swoops on chemical shops and pharmacies to uncover the sale of counterfeit drugs, especially anti-malarial drugs.
The latest exercise by the FDB in Kumasi led to the seizure of 150 packs of Coartem, an anti-malarial medicine, from the shelves of various outlets. The operation, termed “Name and Shame”, was part of an approach to step up the board’s anti-counterfeiting crusade.
The DAILY GRAPHIC welcomes the initiative by the FDB to rid the market of fake medicines but the exercise should not end with the seizure of the drugs.
If really the exercise is meant to “Name and Shame”, then the shameless people behind the counterfeiting business, especially of medicines, must be brought to book.
The DAILY GRAPHIC finds it unacceptable that the nation continues to spend huge sums of money on the treatment of malarial cases when serious efforts and behavioural change can lead to huge savings and the eradication of the disease.
We know that the copying of products, including medicines, has become one of the complex organised crimes in the world, creating big challenges to law enforcement agencies and health professionals.
The counterfeiting of the drugs has affected the efficacy of the medicines and thwarted efforts by health professionals at maintaining a healthy population.
The DAILY GRAPHIC, therefore, calls on law enforcement agencies to collaborate with health professionals in their fight to eliminate unwholesome medicines from the market.
Ghana can be made a malaria-free country if all Ghanaians support the efforts of the MoH to achieve that goal.
2 comments:
Our outfit wishes to express our concern over the recently launched Malaria Programme by the Ghanaian government in Eastern Region of Ghana and it implication for the nation.
While we commend the Ghanaian government for taking seriously the threat of Malaria and initiating a project to curtail it, we however want to point out some serious flaws and it implication for the nation.
Before we move further, we will like to state categorically that, Malaria are not confined to only tropical areas as many people believe and that they also thrive in cooler areas. The epidemic of Malaria in the Soviet Union in the 1920’s which also reached up to the Arctic Circle confirms this assertion.
Also, the United States, Canada, Europe, North Africa and some parts of the Middle East have successfully eradicated Malaria under multifaceted approach with real time lines, budgets and serious commitment by leadership in those countries.
We assert that the failure of this initiative to take case studies from successful initiatives around the world and replicate same here will lead to an unprecedented rise in Malaria cases and death in the next few years. In 1955 after the successful insecticide aerial spraying by United States with DDT to eradicate Malaria, the WHO initiated an Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) programme globally (excluding Africa) which led to reduction in death cause by Malaria in the short-term but death escalated when WHO due to financial constraints could not sustain the exercise. IRS is expensive and unsustainable and the government should stop investing in it.
While Research has shown that, IRS is only 25% effective due to the predisposition of the Malaria parasite in our region which not only bite indoors but also outdoors, we therefore want to remind the operators of the initiatives of the 75% gap and how they intend to deal with it for Ghana to achieve 0% death due to Malaria.
We wish to also remind the so-called Malaria advocates and consultants that eliminating malaria in Africa is going to be more difficult than anywhere in the world, due to its endemic nature. The African mosquito has the longest lifespan of any of its foreign cousins, the old mosquitoes are the most dangerous ones, and as a result it is going to take the latest in Western technology to break the parasite transmission cycle. This technology consists of an aircraft equipped with a high pressure aerosol generator, treating the entire environment the mosquitoes live in, effectively eliminating the mosquitoes.
There is a failure of imagination and leadership in Ghana and Africa with respect to the solution for the elimination of malaria. The elimination of malaria using our propose method would cost only a fraction of what is being expended at present to institutionalize failure in this endeavour.
We are therefore calling on the Minister of Health to initiate an efficient Aerial Spraying programme as he promised the nation on 25th April 2009 at the International Conference Centre during the celebration of the World Malaria Day.
Credit: Hayford Siaw
Executive Director- Volunteer Partnerships for West Africa
(www.vpwa.org)
+ 233 21 928245
+ 233 24 3340112.
info@vpwa.org
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