WORLD MALARIA DAY CELEBRATION OBSERVED

World Vision / Cocoa life an NGO in collaboration with Wassa East District Health Management team and the district assembly has celebrated this year’s World Malaria Day at Wassa Atwebesa in the district. The theme for the celebration is “Invest in the Future, Defeat Malaria”.

The chairman for the occasion, Nana Nortey Chief of Atwebesa thanked the organizers for choosing their community out of the lot and urged the community members to take advantage of the pieces of advice that will be given to help reduce the impact of malaria on the community, district and the nation as a whole.

 The District Director of Health, Ms. Priscilla Amoah in her speech said Government brought many interventions to help eradicate malaria one of which was “roll back malaria” and the aim was to encourage the use of bed nets especially among pregnant women and children less than five years but that could not achieve the intended purpose.

She indicated that malaria is one of the leading causes of death worldwide and in view of this government has brought a latest intervention called “home based care” to help reduce the impact of the disease especially among children.

She said the volunteers to administer this home based care were selected from various communities under the Atobiase sub-district and have been trained to treat cases of malaria in adults, pregnant women and children from six months and above at home before they visit the nearest health facilities. She said in all fifteen communities under the sub-district are to benefit under this intervention.

The Area Development Programme Manager of World Vision, Mrs. Salome Yeboah in her address said malaria is the leading cause of maternal mortality in the country and should be of great concern to everyone. She entreated everyone in their own small way to try and keep the environment clean in order to help stop the breeding of mosquitoes which will eventually bite to infest us with the disease.

The Guest of honour for the occasion, the District Chief Executive for Wassa East Hon. Emmanuel Aggrey in his speech called for a consented effort to discourage the operations of illegal miners popularly called “Galamsey” in their various communities where these activities takes place since most of the pits dugged by these miners are left uncovered and the water collected in them breed mosquitoes and later bites to infest us with the disease. He also cautioned community members to desist from indiscriminate disposal of waste since that money which could have been used for national development is been ventured into the treatment of malaria.

Equipments such as bicycles, rain coats, first aid kits, report cards etc were given to the volunteers to start their operation. The district health director said these report cards on which cases are recorded will be collected on monthly basis by nurses trained to work with these carers in order to monitor their activities in the communities. She entreated community members to be truthful in reporting their cases to the carers to ensure the right diagnose is given.

A demonstration on how the mosquito bed net is mounted was done.

DISTRICT DIRECTOR OF HEALTH, MS. PRISCILLA AMOAH ADDRESSING THE GATHERING