Govt commits GH¢35m to fight Ebola
By Edmund Smith-Asante
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Benjamin
Tetteh (left), a reporter at Joy FM, interviewing Dr Victor Asare Bampoe,
Deputy Minister of Health, after the workshop. With them is Mr Tony Goodman,
PRO of the Ministry of Health
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Delivering
the keynote address yesterday at a media sensitisation workshop organised by
the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) in Accra, Dr Bampoe said the
government had already provided GH¢7 million, adding that more funds would be
released when the need arose.
Other
speakers at the workshop were from the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), the
Noguchi Memorial Institute for Research (NMIR) and the Ghana Health Service
(GHS).
Response
plan
Dr Bampoe
said to show its readiness to deal with any Ebola virus attack, the government
had put in place a national preparedness and response plan.
He listed
the various sub-committees working with an inter-ministerial committee as a
logistics committee, a national technical coordinating committee, surveillance
and laboratory confirmation committee in charge of screening at 14 points of
entry, and an information, education and communication committee responsible
for the dissemination of information and training.
He said
already training had been conducted for 400 members of the GMA, some members of
the Association of Private Medical Practitioners and 1,500 members of the
Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana.
The
deputy minister said health declaration forms had also been placed at the ports
of entry to aid in the screening of travellers, while constant oversight visits
were being conducted at the ports of entry.
He
assured that “in the unlikely event that Ebola comes to Ghana, we will do all
that we have to do to make sure that we contain and control it.”
He added
that the security agencies were patrolling the country’s borders to ensure that
the chance of the disease coming to Ghana through the borders was minimised.
GMA’s
stance
A
representative of the GMA, Dr Titus Beyuo, said the GMA’s view was that the
preparations made were inadequate.
“We need
to be adequately prepared and until we can see that the orderly, the cleaner,
the security man, the taxi driver who will bring the patient to the hospital,
the ambulance driver who would move that patient from one hospital to another
hospital is adequately informed, knows exactly what to do and those who need to
have personal protective equipment have them, we will continue to emphasise that
Ghana and for that matter doctors in this country are not ready to handle an
Ebola outbreak,” he stressed.
Dr Beyuo
recommended that any training or drills involving health personnel should not
be limited to some designated facilities but all districts, since “Ebola is not
going to announce which hospital it will visit.”
Anxiety
Mr
Michael Adjabeng, the representative of the GHS, expressed worry that the
anxiety that had been created about Ebola was causing a much greater harm.
He said
the country was now better prepared for Ebola than it was some weeks back.
He also
expressed confidence in the country’s surveillance system for haemorrhagic
fevers to detect any Ebola case if it occurred.
However,
Mr Adjabeng called for the use of multiple channels to sensitise the general
public to the disease and appealed to the public to develop the habit of always
washing their hands with soap under running water, after contact with people as
a preventive measure.
A
research fellow at the NMIR, Dr Kofi Bonney, said so far 60 cases had been
brought to the institute for testing and all of them had proved negative.
He asked
the media to exercise patience in publishing suspected cases in order not to
cause fear and panic.
Avoid scare mongering - GCGL
The
Managing Director of GCGL, Mr Kenneth Ashigbey, in his welcome address, also
appealed to the media to properly handle information on Ebola.
“Ebola is
not only a health issue but a social one so we should all be concerned about
how we handle information on Ebola. We should avoid scare mongering...,” he
said.
He said
the media, as the vanguards of society, needed to help in the development of
the nation, by updating their knowledge of cholera and Ebola.
Writer’s
email: Edmund.Asante@graphic.com.gh
This was first published by the Daily Graphic on August 20, 2014
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