Ghana commits GH¢1.8m to control NTDs

The Ghana government has committed GH¢1.8 million to the prevention and control of endemic Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) across the country.

That, according to the Health Minister, Mr Alban Bagbin, was meant to ensure the total eradication of other equally worrying diseases, which tended to affect mostly the rural poor.

“Much as we have made gains in the eradication of guinea worm and the elimination of trachoma, there is the need to improve on and extend coverage of the control and elimination activities,” Mr Bagbin said.

He was speaking at the opening of a three-day African regional consultative forum on Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) in Accra.

Over 100 experts, policy makers and heath leaders who are attending the session would discuss ways of scaling up interventions to control or eliminate NTDs in the Africa Region of the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Representatives of endemic countries, donor agencies, pharmaceutical firms, the WHO and other partners attending the forum would at the end of the session agree to, among other things, on coordination mechanisms at the national and regional levels for NTDs programme implementation. .

The forum would inaugurate an NTDs’ Advisory group at the end of the three-day session.

NTDs are a group of tropical infections which are especially endemic in low-income populations in developing regions of Africa, Asia and the Americas.

Snail fever, also known as schistosomiasis, Elephantiasis, Trachoma, River blindness and Buruli ulcer have all been identified as NTDs.

Source: Daily Graphic