Elephantiasis, Oncho Alert !

By Stephen Kwabena Effah
Wednesday, 07 February 2007

AN estimated half of Ghana’s population is at risk of contracting elephantiasis and another four million of onchocerciasis.

This is because these people live in places where the vector and the parasite exist in the country, Professor John Gyapong, Director of Health Research and Management of the Neglected Tropical Diseases NTD of the Ghana Health Service, told newsmen in Accra yesterday.

He also noted that the majority of children in the country, have all kinds of intestinal worm; a situation which is affecting their performance in school.

Prof. Gyapong was speaking at a stakeholders meeting on NTD to discuss a two-year intervention programme developed by the USAID to eliminate NTD to a level that would no longer be public health significance in Ghana by 2015.

He described the NTD situation in Ghana as "pretty much alarming" and noted that the interventions had come at the right time that Ghana is making effort to address the situation saying "it will galvanize all these programmes to manage the situation"

He said NTDs disproportionately affect the health and ruin the lives of people in developing countries, noting "at least one billion people currently suffer from one or more of these diseases worldwide".

In Africa alone, schistosomiasis (bilharzia) affects at least 160 million people out of whom at least 30 million suffer permanent life-threatening complications, he said.

He said that human suffering represented by the figures is enormously greater than the 270 cases of avian influenza reported globally over the past three years yet the neglected tropical diseases are seen not to threaten international health and security.

He said the NTDs occur almost in impoverished populations, adding that the diseases flourish in areas where water supply and sanitation are inadequate, and insects and other disease vectors are constant household and occupational companions.

Prof.Gyapong explained that the consequences of the diseases go beyond severe damage to health.

He mentioned years of agricultural productivity,inefficient land use, food insecurity and missed days at school as some of the burden of NTDs.

The Director-General of Ghana Health Service, Professor Agyemang Badu Akosah, expressed regrets that parliamentarians are using their share of the district assembly’s common fund for infrastructure to the neglect of health problems in the districts.

He therefore appealed to them and district chief executives to use some of the fund for health interventions.

Dr.George Amofa, Director of Public Health, called for massive community investment to be able to make impact in the control of neglected tropical diseases.