According to the Service, these persons did not show any symptoms of the contagious disease hence their discharge.

A 17-year- old student of the Asamankese Senior High School (SHS) died from meningitis a few days ago.

[contextly_sidebar id=”CGoHZqtYBeXv8TgGcKlUhMfsCoNHkvQn”]The death brought to six, the number of meningitis-related deaths among students nationwide.

The student died after complaining of a stiff neck, fever and body pains.

Speaking to Citi News, the Eastern Regional Disease Control Officer, Sally Emmanuel, said close relations of the deceased who were put under active surveillance are still being monitored.

“The said students were closely monitored and they have been doing so well. The same team that decided to keep them agreed that based on the observation so far they pose no more risk at this point in time, and so we can let them join their families as we think they are safe now. But after thorough talks with them the early signs and symptoms are just not going, they have been asked to link up with the nearest health facility within where they stay.”

Other cases 

The death at Asamankese was the latest in a string of deaths from meningitis in educational institutions across the country.

A preliminary report by a medical team at the Damongo District Hospital in the Northern Region this month, indicated that the death of a student at Damongo Senior High School in the West Gonja District, was caused by non-communicable meningitis.

The Eastern Regional Director of Health Services, Dr. Charity Sarpong, also confirmed that a second-year science student of Koforidua Technical School, died from Meningitis.

A student of Tempane Senior High School in the Garu-Tempane district of the Upper East Region, another from the Zuarungu SHS also in Upper East, and one from Bawku Sec. Tech. have also died from Cerebrospinal Meningitis (CMS).

Hundreds have also been hospitalised as a result of the disease.

These have raised concerns over a possible outbreak of the disease after a similar development at the Kumasi Academy in the Ashanti Region, although early medical reports indicate that the students were infected with H1N1 influenza Type A, after the death of four students.

The Ghana Health Service together with the World Health Organization, W.H.O, have procured and administered vaccines to students, teaching and non-teaching staff of the school.

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By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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An update to its policies on both Facebook and Instagram prohibits developers from using “data obtained from us to provide tools that are used for surveillance.”

Monday’s policy change come on the heels of investigations from the ACLU, which found social media monitoring companies sold their services to law enforcement, who targeted individuals through Twitter (TWTR, Tech30), Facebook (FB, Tech30), and Instagram. The spy tools often disproportionally targeted communities of color.

Social media surveillance is a growing concern, especially among people who use Facebook and Twitter for activism. At the SXSW Interactive festival on Monday, Matt Cagle, attorney for the ACLU of Northern California, hosted a panel on how law enforcement uses social media tools — and how Facebook’s new policies could help stop invasive data collection.

“The language does a good job of putting developers on notice that surveillance of user data through Facebook is totally off limits,” Cagle told CNNTech.

Related: Communities call for more control over police surveillance

Though Facebook doesn’t define surveillance in its policies, Cagle says that’s not a bad thing. By banning surveillance in general, it lets them broadly apply the policy and future-proofs it, he said.

Facebook reviews services that use its APIs, and will check both their applications and marketing materials to see if they’re advertising services that could be considered surveillance.

Law enforcement agencies across the country have relied on social media tools to track and monitor citizens. According to a study from the Brennan Center for Justice, 156 jurisdictions have spent a total of almost $6 million on these tools since 2010. And the public largely has no idea how they’re being used.

“They mostly don’t have publicly available policies that talk about using this monitoring software,” Rachel Levinson-Waldman, senior council for the Brennan Center for Justice, said on Monday’s panel.

Related: Facebook, Twitter block social media surveillance tool

As social media companies continue to restrict the use of their platforms for surveillance purposes, there’s a growing movement for local law enforcement to be more transparent about what types of surveillance tools they’re purchasing.

The Community Control Over Police Surveillance effort encourages cities to implement surveillance ordinances that require law enforcement to publicly report when they want to buy spy tools.

In a blog post announcing its new policies, Facebook says it’s already taken action against developers who used its platform for surveillance. Geofeedia, for instance, was cut off from Facebook following the ACLU investigation.

“What matters now is they actually implement the policies moving forward,” Cagle said.

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Source: CNN

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