Checks by Today indicate that the cholera outbreak, which has indeed become an annual ritual in Ghana and has taken the capital city, Accra, by storm, has killed scores of people in its wake including a seasoned journalist with an Accra-based newspaper.
Reports indicate that the journalist, name withheld, met his untimely death together with 11 people within the Tema municipality.
The outbreak has necessitated health experts to issue a cholera alert in the capital.
Accra has recorded 826 cases of cholera with 17 confirmed deaths compared to 3,000 cases and 24 deaths recorded within the same period last year due to preventive measures put in place.
AMA officials are already sensitising residents, especially food vendors, on the need to observe personal and food hygiene to curb the spread of cholera and indicated that food vendors who prepared food under unhygienic conditions would be prosecuted.
Earlier, AMA health think tanks said that a survey by the Assembly showed that most houses and schools in the city do not have toilet facilities.
As at September last year, over 117,000 houses in the metropolis did not have toilet facilities. That however has been reduced to 43,324 by December 2011, while the number of pan latrines has reduced from a little over 5,000 to 576 as at March this year.
This situation, the AMA noted, results in indiscriminate defecation into drains and open spaces.
Of particular mention was the lack of toilet and urinal facilities at Dansoman No. Two Primary and Junior High School (JHS) headed by Mr David Adjotey, a situation, they lamented, is compelling students to use the school’s premises, particularly classrooms as toilet facilities.
“The general environment is therefore totally contaminated. This condition is as potential trigger for outbreak of cholera and diseases,” they said.
They cautioned Ghanaians to be careful with the food they eat and the water they drink to avoid being infected.
They advised people to avoid buying food exposed to flies and other unhygienic conditions.
They further urged Ghanaians to wash their hands with soap under clean running water before preparing or eating food.
The gravity of this outbreak has driven Community Pharmacists to issue a press release expressing worry about this canker and further cautioning the public to be watchful in their daily routines.
It is obvious these community pharmacists, whose job is to administer drugs to the affected patients, have been inundated with the sheer number of patients and hence had no option but to cry out loud.
Meanwhile, the Accra Mayor, Alfred Oko Vanderpuye, has attributed the outbreak of cholera in the metropolis to poor liquid waste handling and insanitary conditions under which food is prepared for public consumption and not poor solid waste disposal.
He said hawkers would continuously be ejected from the streets because they had been identified as sources of transmitting bacteria and viruses to unsuspecting clients, adding, “Most hawkers hardly wash their hands after visiting places of convenience and sell contaminated food and water to their clients.”
It is however reassuring that Mr Vanderpuije said the Accra Metropolitan Assembly would leave no stone unturned to nib the problem in the bud.
Metropolitan Director of Health Services, Dr John B. K. Yabani, has also cautioned the public to be cautious of what they eat and drink at funerals explaining that a bacterium called Vibrio cholerae which causes cholera could stay in a house fly for 14 days.
He said because of the contaminated nature of a cholera corpse, it was advisable that burial of such corpses were done under strict supervision of health workers and advised the public to cooperate with health officials.
It is sad to note that the Accra about 2,000 environmental officers, but currently has about 150 officers who were working under much strain.
STORY: KORYEKPOR AWLESU FREEMAN
