First Lady Rebecca Akufo-Addo and guests during an exhibition after the commemoration
First Lady Rebecca Akufo-Addo has called on the corporate world to support malaria control interventions to help advance broader development efforts.
Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo, speaking at the commemoration of the 2017 World Malaria Day, explained that investments would help fill the gap of funding levels and reduce work and school absenteeism whilst improving productivity and fostering business growth. It was themed ‘end malaria for good, a call for action’.
The first lady stated that businesses lose 30 productive working days each year due to episodes of malaria workers suffer, adding that malaria is a proximal cause and consequence of low productivity and under-development and must, therefore, be ended.
Dr Owen Laws Kaluwa, Country Representative WHO, in a speech called on malaria affected countries and their development partners to boost their investment in the prevention to propel countries along the path of elimination.
He charged countries to implement concrete actions across sector, strengthen border collaborations and allocate resources to end malaria to transform their goal of ‘end malaria for good’ into a shared reality.
Dr Constance Bart-Plange, Manager, Malaria Control Programme (MCP), urged Ghanaians to take the rapid diagnostic test (RDT) or the laboratory test to be sure that they have malaria before taking any of the malaria treatments.
She indicated that fever is a symptom of malaria like many other diseases and so people should not assume they have malaria because they have a fever.
Mrs Bart-Plange, justifying her statement, mentioned that irrational intake of the malaria drug can lead to a resistance emerging, where the body would become resistant to the drug and make it ineffective when a person actually has the disease.
Speaking on the preventive methods of malaria, she said that malaria preventive methods are free, including free insecticide treated nets (ITNs), free indoor residual spraying, free seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMCs) for pregnant women and many others.
“We must practise proper environmental management measures in order to make our environments void of stagnant clean waters which facilitate the breeding of mosquitoes by filling up drenches and holes that collect water,” she said.
By Abigail Owiredu-Boateng