The strain of pneumococcal meningitis has so far claimed 85 lives out of the 456 cases recorded in the country.<\/p>\n
The Minister of Health, Mr. Alex segbefia, who gave the statistics in a statement on the floor of Parliament yesterday, said the Brong Ahafo region had recorded the highest number of death of 45 out of 288 cases reported.<\/p>\n
The Northern region, which had 58 cases, had recorded the second highest number of deaths of 19.<\/p>\n
Forty-three cases had been recorded in the Upper West region, with eight deaths, while the Ashanti region had 17 cases with six deaths.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”tG4WOZhU7hRHYt1AhqtwNtptSvYa2w4K”]The Greater Accra region had recorded four cases, with two deaths; Eastern two cases, two deaths; Upper East, 35 cases with one death; Volta, seven cases, with one death and Western, two cases, with one death.<\/p>\n
There have been no reported cases of the deadly disease in the Central region.<\/p>\n
Last week Thursday, Mr. Segbefia was reported to have told the Parliamentary Select committee on Health that, 50 people had died as a result of the disease across country.<\/p>\n
He said there had been 246 reported cases as of that time.<\/p>\n
Interventions<\/strong><\/p>\n Mr. Segbefia told the House that health professionals supported by officials from the district assemblies and the National Disaster Management Organization, were on the ground to contain the disease.<\/p>\n Besides, he said, health professional had been reoriented to the management of meningitis, while the government had provided funds and 7,500 vials of antibiotics for health workers.<\/p>\n The minister said he had directed that MoH mobile health vans be redirected to the affected communities to support interventions.<\/p>\n Additionally, the Noguchi Memorial Institute from Medical research was leading efforts to determine the exact serotype of bacteria causing the disease.<\/p>\n It is being supported by the Kumasi Center for Collaborative Research and the Medical Research Council of the Gambia.<\/p>\n Concerns<\/strong><\/p>\n The causative agent for the pneumococcal meningitis is streptococcus pneumonia, otherwise known as pneumococcus.<\/p>\n The Northern, Upper west and Upper East regions and their neighboring districts in the Brong Ahafo and Volta regions lie in the meningitis belt of Africa where the condition is endemic.<\/p>\n The belt spans Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east. Countries in the belt experience a number of meningitis cases annually, with periodic spikes during the harmattan.<\/p>\n As a deviation, the cases of meningitis this year were first reported in the in the Brong Ahafo region, where it has assumed the dimension of an outbreak.<\/p>\n Therefore, the Minister of Health said, the ministry was most concerned because the outbreak \u201cstarted in areas that are not commonly affected and the causative agent is observed behaving quite differently\u201d.<\/p>\n He said although there had been previous reports indicating outbreaks of pneumococcus, they were rare occurrences which required many more in-depth laboratory studies on the type the country was dealing with.<\/p>\n No meningitis epidemic<\/strong><\/p>\n Mr. Segbefia said currently 216 districts across the nine regions had not experienced an epidemic of meningitis and indicated that \u201cwe can define what is happening now as an outbreak, which is an occurrence of a disease in excess of the normal\u201d.<\/p>\n He said, epidemiologically, an epidemic of meningitis was said to occur under two scenarios based on the number of cases reported in a week for a specified population.<\/p>\n \u201cA number of activities in the areas of surveillance, case management, laboratory testing, coordination, advocacy and social mobilization are ongoing across the country and these are beginning to yield fruits\u2019, he said.<\/p>\n MPs<\/strong><\/p>\n Contributing to the statement, the Majority chief Whip and MP for Asawase, Alhaji Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka, urged health professionals to be extra vigilant in the diagnosis and treatment of meningitis.<\/p>\n He asked MoH to assist health centers to acquire test kits which could diagnose meningitis within 30 minutes to ensure swift detection and treatment.<\/p>\n The MP for Wa West, Mr. Joseph Yileh Kyireh, urged the government to support the establishment of laboratory tests for meningitis and other diseases.<\/p>\n The MP for Offinso North, Mr. Augustine Collins Ntim, said the increasing death rate form meningitis was worrying and called for extra effort to arrest the situation.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: Daily Graphic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The strain of pneumococcal meningitis has so far claimed 85 lives out of the 456 cases recorded in the country. The Minister of Health, Mr. Alex segbefia, who gave the statistics in a statement on the floor of Parliament yesterday, said the Brong Ahafo region had recorded the highest number of death of 45 out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":184944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19,10,11],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n