'LET'S DEAL WITH MALARIA, GUINEA WORM MENACE' (Page 48)

Story: Kofi Yeboah
A renowned Ghanaian physician specialist and cardiologist, Prof. Joseph Orleans Mends Pobee, says the rate of malaria and guinea worm infection in the country is a blot on the state of the nation’s health.
He said it was unfortunate that 50 years after independence, Ghana was ranked as the second worst country in the world after Pakistan in terms of guinea worm infection, while malaria was the major cause of death in the country, especially among children.
Prof. Pobee, therefore, called for a concerted effort by the government and all individuals to maintain good sanitation, environmental cleanliness and personal hygiene, to deal with the menace of guinea worm and malaria.
“It’s not only the responsibility of the government. It’s also the responsibility of society and individuals to look for good health. Our health is in our own two hands,” he said in an exclusive interview with the Daily Graphic yesterday to share his thoughts on the state of the nation’s health over the past 50 years.
Prof. Pobee, who is also a Professor of Medicine and Therapeutics at the University of Ghana Medical School (UGMS), will address the subject comprehensively when he delivers the 12th Golden Jubilee Lecture at the Accra International Conference Centre (AICC) on Thursday.
The lecture is under the auspices of the Ghana@50 Secretariat and forms part of activities marking Ghana’s Golden Jubilee.
As a Fellow of many distinguished national and international academic institutions, such as the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal College of Physicians of London, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, the West African College of Physicians and the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons, Prof. Pobee is expected to bring his rich experience to bear on the lecture.
According to the 2006 recipient of the Companion of the Order of the Volta (Medicine and General Practice), malaria, for instance, was causing huge financial loss to the state in view of the fact that it supped the energy of adults who got infected and thus, undermine productivity.
He said many Ghanaians had lost their sense of good sanitation and environmental cleanliness as a result of which there was indiscriminate defecating and throwing of garbage around the community by unscrupulous people he described as “Mr and Mrs Anonymous”.
Prof. Pobee said in order to address the sanitation menace there was the need to improve the delivery of potable water and provision of places of convenience.
He also suggested the re-introduction of sanitary inspectors who, he said, should be given more powers to instil a sense of environmental cleanliness in the people.
Prof. Pobee lauded interventions such as the introduction of insecticide treated nets (ITNs) to combat malaria, adding that figures from the Western Region indicated that the rate of malaria infection was reducing.