Eric Kwakye Darfour
Eastern Regional Minister Eric Kwakye Darfour has said health authorities have assured him that there is no outbreak of disease in the region as being reported.
“There is no outbreak of any disease in the region. Not meningitis, influenza nor any other communicable diseases that should raise fear and panic of the citizenry,” the minister stated this during a press conference on recent reports that some students are dying of the influenza H1N1 at Koforidua.
He explained that the Eastern Regional Coordinating Council and the Regional Health Directorate are considering measures to compel senior high schools to hire resident health officers.
The move, the minister stated, is to have a more proactive approach to handling illness in schools and preventing escalation and possible deaths.
According to the regional minister, media reports to the effect that students are dying of influenza A, H1N1 cannot be true.
“Last week, a student of Koforidua SECTECH died at the Regional Hospital. Some people concluded wrongly that it was as a result of the influenza A, H1N1. Results conducted by the hospital revealed that the 16-year-old boy Denis Yaw Acheampong died as a result of meningitis. Again about five students were rumoured to have collapsed at St Martin’s SHS in Nsawam as a result of meningitis and influenza. Reports from the Nsawam Hospital showed that the students suffered from malaria and hysteria,” he added.
Commenting on the circumstances that led to the death of the Koforidua Secondary Technical School student, he explained that “the guy, we are told, had been sick for some time, but he himself was not reporting. If you talk to those close to him, they tell you he had not been healthy for some time. So he did not report his illness early and the school’s infirmary is nothing to write home about.”
Mr Kwakye Darfuor continued, “We should actually compel heads of institutions to create a first port of call in all the schools, employ some health personnel and put them there. It beats my imagination how you can be handling about 3,000 students without any form of attendants medically.”
He advised residents in the region to heed to health advice by ensuring personal hygiene and reporting to health facilities whenever they experience fever or unusual cold and body weakness for prompt action to be taken.
FROM Daniel Bampoe, Koforidua