Bilharzia surveillance project for Ga West District

Story: Abdul Aziz
10/03/08
Five schoolchildren aged between 10 and 17years, who were randomly selected from 75 schoolchildren in two schools in the Ga West District and tested for bilhazia, a water-borne disease, all tested positive for the disease.
The Schistosomiasis Surveillance Project is being conducted by the Environmental Biology and Health Division of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
The project has the objective of collecting the urine and stool samples of about150 schoolchildren and specimen from the Sunkwa and Nsaki streams in Pokuase for the project.
The first batch of 75 samples has been collected from schoolchildren in the Pokuase District Assembly Primary and Junior Secondary Schools and Pokuase Methodist Primary School.
Despite the rapid urbanisation of the Ga rural area of the Greater Accra Region which has witnessed the construction of water supply systems and boreholes, people, especially children, swim in the streams.
Mr George Tetteh Mensah, Research Scientist of the council, also attributed the prevalence of the disease to the attitude of some people who have resorted to the drinking of water from the streams because of the salty nature of water from boreholes in the area.
Mr Mensah said the disease could cause havoc if steps were not taken immediately to prevent it from spreading in the area.
The research scientist said the disease could be rated as an outbreak when 30 out of every 100 samples tested positive for the disease.
He appealed to corporate bodies and non-governmental organisations to complement the efforts of the government in eradicating the disease in the country.
He said the best approaches to eradicating the disease included the administration of the drug, praziquantel to those already affected and the intensification of health education to break the cycle of the disease.
He said a new strategy had been developed to involve the communities in the research activities.
Mr Mensah said health education was, therefore, being carried out alongside the schistosomiamis surveillance project to enable the communities break the cycle of the disease and stop it from re-curring.