GHS begins distribution of mosquito nets

The Ashanti Regional Health Directorate has begun the registration of households for mass distribution of Long-Lasting Insecticide Nets (LLIN).

The exercise which forms part of measures being implemented in the fight against malaria is expected to register 1,580,817 households across all districts in the Region with the exception of Obuasi and Obuasi East.

Dr Emmanuel Tinkorang, the Regional Director of Health Services who announced this, explained that there was an ongoing Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) in Obuasi and Obuasi East.

He said 4,542 trained registration assistants with identification tags and Ghana Health Service (GHS) branded T-shirts would be deployed to undertake the exercise which would end on February 11.

The country’s malaria control interventions, he said, predated independence and classified to be in the control phase according to the Global Malaria Elimination Programme (GMEP).

He said moving Ghana’s programmatic status from a control phase to pre-elimination phase required introduction of additional control tools.

“The Ghana Health Service and its development partners as part of efforts to achieve this status will distribute Long-Lasting Insecticide Treated Nets in all communities in the region,” he emphasised.

The Regional director indicated that the entire population was at risk with children under five years and pregnant women being the most vulnerable.

“We have made significant progress against malaria in the past 10 years: case fatality rate has decreased from 0.52 in 2015 to less than 0.1 in 2020; OPD attendance due to malaria has also reduced from 42 per cent in 2014 to 21 per cent in 2020,” he disclosed.

Dr. Tinkorang said the Region’s progress in malaria control mirrored the national statistics, saying that the proportion of admissions due to malaria had decreased from 22 per cent from 2019 to 19.3 per cent in 2021.

He said the proportion of in-patient deaths attributed to malaria decreased from 0.85 in 2019 to 0.38 in 2021, adding that under five malaria case fatality ratio had fallen by 60 per cent within the same period.

Despite these successes, he said the country remained one of 10 Sub-Saharan African countries that contribute to about 70 per cent global cases and deaths while imposing huge expenditure on the National Health Insurance Scheme. GNA