The importation of substandard malaria medicines according to a research fellow at the Navrongo Health Research Center (NHRC) in the Upper East Region has posed a challenge to the fight against malaria in the country.
According to Dr. Thomas Anyorigiya, some individuals and pharmaceutical companies continue to import substandard drugs which cannot withstand the malaria parasite into the country from Asia.
“Currently we have deployed the best of anti-malaria treatment across the world but as we speak now, the issue of substandard drugs is also a problem. We have drugs emanating from Asia to Africa.”
Dr. Anyorigiya who doubles as coordinator of a project dubbed ‘strengthening quality of malaria care and surveillance in Ghanaian communities’ spoke to A1radioonline.com on a sideline of a media training workshop on malaria organized by the African Media and Malaria Research Network (AMMREN) and the Navrongo Health Research Centre (NHRC) held at NHRC.
Human behavior according to Dr. Anyorigiya posed a challenge to the fight against malaria cases because the public is “creating an environment that is conducive for the growth of mosquitoes that causes malaria”
Upper East Regional Focal Person on Malaria, Sydney Abilba Ageyomah revealed that malaria mortality of children less than 5 years have declined from 0.72 per cent in 2015 to 0.51 and 0.29 in 2016 and 2017 respectively.
He observed that the figures could decline further if behavior of some pregnant women in the region adheres to the Intermittent Preventive Treatment (IPT) malaria treatment and preventive method.
“We have constantly observed that the rate, that is IPT 1 to 5 keeps dropping. Assuming we have issues of 10 women at the initial stage that are introduced to this medication, they are supposed to be on it till they deliver but along the way, most of them due to other things and they [pregnant women] not understanding the importance of the service, most of them are not adhering to the treatment”
The 3 year project seeks to accelerate the reduction of malaria burden among children under 10 years of age and pregnant women in rural communities. The Comic Relief UK and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) sponsored project also seeks to enhance community demand for quality malaria care.
In the Upper East Region, 6,000 people are targeted to benefit the program in the Kassena-Nankana West district and Kassena-Nankana municipal.
In order to assist with community education, some selected journalists in the region were trained to advocate and impact positively on malaria case management and service delivery.
Executive Secretary of AMMREN, Dr. Charity Binka admonished journalists to step up in their role in educating and empowering community members on malaria.
The media, according to Dr. Binka can contribute immensely to the fight against malaria by “educating and informing communities to make inform choices about their lives”
Dr. Binka emphasized the need of journalists to probe and make malaria reportage a passion through news coverage, documentaries, features, exclusive interviews, radio programs and active engagement with researchers.
By: Joshua Asaah|A1radioonline.com|Ghana
