Month: February 2024

AngloGold Ashanti, Obuasi Mine has performed a ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of a theatre, laboratory and dispensary for the Akrokerri Hospital in the Adansi North District of the Ashanti Region.

The hospital, which serves the town and neighbouring communities, has not seen any major upgrade in its facilities since it was established in February 1960.

The upgrade is in response to the infrastructural deficit and forms part of the intervention programmes under the 10-year Socio-Economic Development Plan (SEDP) of AngloGold Ashanti, launched in 2022.

Mr Eric Kwaku Kusi, the District Chief Executive (DCE), who joined the AngloGold Ashanti officials to cut the sod, lauded the mining company for the plethora of interventions it had rolled out over the years, especially in the 10-year SEDP.

He was optimistic that the expansion works would welcome more health workers to the facility to improve the quality of healthcare service delivery in the town and its surrounding communities.

Nana Serwaa Bru
waa II, the Queen Mother of Akrokerri, expressed worry over the current state of the health facility, which had not seen any major renovation since its establishment.

She said the importance of the hospital in rendering quality services to residents could not be overemphasised and commended AngloGold Ashanti for the rehabilitation works, which was a welcomed relief.

Mr Eric Atuahene, the District Director of Health Services, disclosed plans to upgrade the hospital into a polyclinic to offer enhanced services in Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT), Antenatal, and General OPD care, amongst others.

Mr Edmund Oduro Agyei, the Community Relations Manager of AngloGold Ashanti, said the construction of the facilities were in fulfilment of the corporate social responsibility of the company to the people of Adansiman.

It was committed to improving the lives of people in its host communities and would continue to deliver on its promises as captured in the 10-year Socio-Economic Development Plan, he said.

The project, being
executed by Crisspan Company Limited, an Obuasi-based contractor, is expected to be completed in September, this year.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Upper Respiratory Tract Infections, tops Out-Patient Department (OPD) morbidity cases in the Greater Accra region in the last three years.

Upper Respiratory Tract Infections (URTI) affect the upper part of one’s respiratory system, including nose, trachea, lungs, and diaphragm, which work together to facilitate breathing.

A total of 13 local Assemblies in the region have recorded URTI as a top three OPD morbidity cases in the last three years. ?

Dr. Louisa Ademki Matey, the Municipal Director of Health for Ayawaso West Municipality, said in an interview with the GNA that URTI OPD morbidity cases had nearly doubled between 2021 and 2023.

‘This is a disturbing trend and of great concern to us. The cases have actually increased consistently from 13,368 to 25,789. Now we are dealing with a double burden of diseases,’ she said. ?

Dr Matey said air pollution had a connection with non-communicable diseases like URTI, explaining that inhaling poor air that had small particles get into one’s blood stream and impa
ir its functions as well as other organs.

‘In as much as air pollution has a link with URTI, we at this Health Directorate from now are going to examine the data, connect with the facilities to look at the risk factors, the conditions closely segregate the data, and take more history of persons with the conditions,’ she said.

Mr Desmond Appiah, the Country Lead of Clean Air Fund- Ghana, said although the URTI could be linked to air pollution, the disaggregation of the data and further probing would help inform decision makers at the local Assemblies, the areas that need specific intervention to deal with the cause.

‘…Great to have this piece of information and with this, we can begin to interrogate and appreciate what the issues are. This Municipality is linked to almost all the major highways,’ he noted.

He said the Municipality was part of the 13 districts in Accra involved in the Breath Cities clean air initiative that aimed to reduce air pollution, slash carbon emissions, and enhance public health.

T
he Municipal Chief Executive, he said, had signed up to the initiative, which among other supports include, providing low-cost sensors, capacity building and data analysis on air pollution to enable the Municipality leadership to take steps to ensure clean air for all. ?

Through an evidence-based strategy, combining data, policy, and community engagement, Breathe Cities has the ambitious goal of contributing to reducing air pollution by 30 percent on average across participating cities by 2030 compared to 2019 levels. ?

According to Clean Air Fund, such a bold reduction would prevent an estimated 39,000 premature deaths and around 79,000 new cases of asthma in children each decade, saving $107 billion in avoided hospitalisations and deaths.

Accra is Africa’s fastest growing city, and the capital of one the world’s fastest growing economies.

More than four million people live in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area with a daily influx of 2.5 million business commuters.

It is the country’s commercial centre
and capital. Almost half of Accra’s dust, very tiny particles concentrations are attributable to road transport, 39 per cent, which is linked to inadequate public transport infrastructure. ?

About 70 per cent of daily commuters in Ghana use privately run minibuses known locally as ‘Tro-tro’, which are often older, higher-emitting vehicles.

?Privately owned vehicles account for the rest of Accra’s traffic congestion and exhaust fumes.

Because Accra’s vast networks of roads remain unpaved and dusty, tiny particle concentrations are produced through resuspended dust.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Dr Aissi Melchior, the Director General of the West African Health Organization (WAHO), has urged health institutions in the West African sub-region to mainstream gender in health and risk communication to avert gender inequality.

He said men and women had varying approaches to risk and did not have the same access to communication to form perceptions of disease and infection responses.

Dr Aissi, represented by Dr Babacar Fall, Health Communication Officer of ECOWAS Regional Centre for Surveillance and Disease Control (RCSDC) was speaking at the Regional Workshop to Consider Gender Mainstreaming on Risk Communication and Community Engagement in Accra.

According to the World Health Organization, risk communication is the instantaneous sharing of knowledge, suggestions, and viewpoints between authorities and those who are in danger of losing their lives, their health, or their social, economic, or cultural well-being.

Mainstreaming of gender in Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) forms part o
f a five-year strategy to improve the communication preparedness of communities for disease outbreaks and pandemics in West Africa.

He said health institutions in the sub-region must include gender in their communication regarding diseases, infections, and pandemic responses.

‘Men and women do not behave in the same way in the face of risks, nor do they have the same access to, or use of communication channels and they do not have the same perception of risk, do not have the same health practices,’ he said

The Representative of WAHO, said, therefore, they also do not adopt the same preparedness measures, hence, the countries must mainstream gender to improve their pandemic responses.

Dr Dacosta Aboagye, the Director of Health Promotion and Chairperson of ECOWAS RCCE Strategy, told the GNA that risk communication was essential in managing future pandemics in the region.

He said the relevance of mainstreaming gender in West Africa’s pandemic responses, indicating that they needed to include various groups,
especially targeting gender-based issues.

‘We need to strategically position gender within our strategic document and make sure that we are not only having them in the document but also look at ways of empowerment, since vulnerable groups are very important in the discourse of gender,’ he said.

He urged health institutions in the sub-region to explore how best they could effectively implement the RCCE strategy for pandemic response.

Dr. Olayinka Umar-Farouk, Deputy Project Director, RCCE, and a facilitator said risk communication was not well understood in the sub-region.

She said risk communication must be a continuous process in the sub-region to raise awareness about pandemic responses.

The participants of the workshop include health professionals and technocrats from various countries within the West Africa sub-region.

The three-day workshop is aimed at helping to build regional capacity to take gender-based issues into account in risk communication.

They will also analyze gender mainstreaming init
iatives and challenges in the ECOWAS region.

Source: Ghana News Agency

The Accra Golden Lions Club has engaged market women of Madina in the La Mawantanang Municipality to sensitise them on childhood cancer, a leading cause of death among children.

The sensitisation exercise was to provide the necessary information on childhood cancer to ensure an understanding of the life-threatening disease and encourage screening for early detection and treatment.

Members of the Club held placards with inscriptions such as, ‘Globally 37 per cent of children with cancer survive, but survival rates vary by region,’ and ‘Each year, an estimated 400,000 children and adolescents of 0-19 years old develop cancer.’

Others are: ‘Childhood cancer cannot generally be prevented or detected through screening,’ ‘In many countries, cancer is the second leading cause of death in children over 1 year of age, exceeded only by accidents.’

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency Mr Blaise Ackom, the Secretary for the Cancer Support Network Foundation, said globally about 400,000 children were diagnosed w
ith a type of childhood cancer.

He said from 2015 to 2019, Ghana diagnosed 1,073 children with cancer and currently, every year, it is estimated that about 1,200 children are diagnosed with childhood cancer.

Globally a child was diagnosed with cancer every two minutes.

‘Cancer is basically cells in the body that grow out of control,’ Mr Ackom said, and that those cells did not ‘obey a rule’ where they needed to die for new ones to form.

Childhood cancer diagnosis was difficult because usually children exhibited signs and symptoms of ‘normal’ sicknesses making parents unaware of the signs and symptoms of the disease, he said.

He said the cause was unknown but risk factors like exposure to certain radiation could predispose children to developing cancer.

He advised the public, particularly parents, to pay critical attention to changes in their children, especially when they notice loss of weight, loss of appetite, unclear vision, and development of lumps around the abdomen and visit the hospitals on time
for early diagnosis.

Mrs Jennifer Victoria Duodu-Mensah, the Chairperson of the Childhood Cancer Advocacy of the Lions Club, said the club was a humanitarian organisation that identified needs in society and tackled them.

She said it was essential to educate the market women to make an impact on their families and friends and urged agencies, non-governmental organisations, and patriotic citizens to spread the information as children were the future of the nation.

Source: Ghana News Agency