The Ministry of Health has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Novo Nordisk, a leading Danish multinational pharmaceutical company in diabetic care.
Recent reports show an increase in non-communicable diseases in Ghana, with diabetics as the most prevalent.
The International Diabetes Federation also estimated more than 266,000 people in Ghana having diabetics with 71 percent not diagnosed.
This has led to a new demand for increased diabetes awareness and education.
Speaking at the occasion, the Minister for Health, Alex Segbefia, said government has been working with Novo Nordisk for years, and has together established over six diabetic centers across the country.
The Ministry added that, the signing of the MoU will go a long way to benefit the country and improve the partnership between the two parties.
“Increasingly, we are finding that the health of our people cannot be left strictly to government. You need to go into partnership and get private enterprises involved in the health process and this is one of such processes. We have a very good relationship with the people of Denmark and now we are extending it further not only with them giving us donor funding support, but also companies in Denmark will help to expand our health systems”.
In addition, Emma Jakobsson, the Public Affairs Director of Novo Nordisk said the centers they have established will help bring the education and awareness needed to fight the disease.
She said they also train specialize doctors who will be attending to critical situations.
“We already have six centers running in five different regions in Ghana. It’s important to create awareness about diabetes because seven out of ten people in Ghana who live with diabetes are not aware they have it. We make sure the healthcare practitioners are trained to prescribe the right medicine and also hope this memorandum of understanding will be a lot wider than just those clinics because there are a lot of things that can be done even though you do a lot already”.
The signing of the MoU which was done at the Danish embassy in Accra, also involved key stakeholders from the Ghana health care sector including the Ambassador of Denmark to Ghana, Tove Degnbol.
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By: Felicia Osei/citifmonline.com/Ghana