Scottish-based charity, St Andrew fights bilharzia in Bongo
The St Andrew’s Clinics for Children (STACC), a Scotland- based charity is engaging the local communities in Bongo District in the Upper East Region to eradicate bilharzia.
STACC is working through its subsidiary STACC-Ghana, to fight bilharzia in the communities especially among children.
The group held a week-long activities spanning October 6- October 13 to empower the communities, to stop the reintroduction of the disease, which is prevalent in the area.
Bilharzia, also known as schistosomiasis is a water-vector borne disease that affects human beings and in children in particular, who may come into contact with any water body that is infected with the parasite.
There are two types of bilharzia in Ghana namely: urinal or intestinal bilharzia. The disease is transmitted through urine, or faeces of an infected person.
The disease manifests itself as blood in the infected person’s urine or faeces and could have long term consequences like low productivity; and bladder, or intestinal cancers in the victims.
Professor Michael D. Wilson, Chief Executive officer of STACC-Ghana, and former Head of the Parasitology Department of Nogouchi Memorial Institute of Medical Research told a durbar of the chiefs and people of Gowrie, that “it is important to empower local people, to evolve sustainable strategies such as behavioural changes that would eliminate the habitats of the intermediary hosts of bilharzia parasites.
This, he said would prevent the reintroduction of bilharzia into the communities.
Naba Gonbila-Belenvue expressed joy for the interventionist support from STACC, and the interest of the charity in children’s health, and in particular for choosing to work within the district.
The prevalence rate of bilharzia at the time STACC-Ghana begun the programme to eliminate the disease in 2008 was around 83 per cent.
By 2010 the disease’s prevalent rate had plummeted to 5.5 per cent among school-going children, whiles that among non-school-going children had dropped to 36 per cent.
The challenge of eliminating the disease from the district is exacerbated by its re-introduction by non- school children, who are at most risk to the disease, due to their frequent contact with infected water bodies.
STACC donated tools such as shovels, trapping nets, wellington-boots and hand-gloves to the communities during the durbar, to be used to eliminate bilharzia.
The organisation also demonstrated to school children and other volunteers the use of trapping nets to sample bilharzia parasites hosts from the canals.
STACC-Ghana screened school children for the bilharzia parasites and formed science clubs in the various schools, to monitor bilharzia parasites levels in the canals.
The charity joined volunteers from the communities to clear weeds along the banks of the canals that may provide habitats for the parasites’ intermediary hosts.
These are part of STACC-Ghana’s plans to involve the local communities to evolve sustainable strategies, to eliminate the disease.
Source: GNA