Ehunabobrim Prah Agyensaim (2nd left) and Dr. Nii Nortey Hanson-Nortey (1st right) with other participants at the launch
A communications outreach programme targeted at Ghanaians who may be suffering from tuberculosis (TB) unknowingly has been outdoored in Accra.
The ‘Know Your Lungs’ campaign, led by the national TB ambassador, Ehunabobrim Prah Agyensaim VI, chief of Assin Owirenkyi Traditional Area, is expected to increase awareness on the symptoms of TB and lung health among Ghanaians.
The national TB ambassador will be championing the campaign by sharing TB information through strong stakeholder collaboration and his constituents of traditional leaders to change the mindsets and perceptions about the health condition and increase case detection in the long term.
World TB reports estimates that 44,000 new cases of TB are recorded in Ghana each year. Out of the figure, 800 of the cases are drug resistant and 9,700 die of the disease despite it being preventable and curable.
The TB crisis in Ghana is aggravated by low case finding among adults and children, poor patient support, weak diagnosis systems within the public sector.
Currently, only 33 per cent of all new cases are diagnosed and reported annually whilst TB transmission continues unabated in communities.
AURUM, lead partner of the campaign, said the campaign message dubbed ‘Its Time’ is a simple but strong call for all Ghanaians to know about TB status, embrace and support persons with TB, go to a lab to be diagnosed, start TB treatment early, stay on treatment and complete it.
“Our focus is to help reduce the high levels of TB associated stigma … through this campaign more people will go to a facility either public or private to seek care,” Dr. Nii Nortey Hanson-Nortey, AURUM country director, indicated.
Dr. Emmanuel Ankrah Odame, head of Policy Planning Monitoring & Evaluation (PPME), Ministry of Health (MoH), who officially launched the campaign, called for the use of innovative approaches to address the issue of low case detection in the country.
“This awareness creation drive should help us increase the level of knowledge that our people have on the disease and to avail themselves to take advantage of all the government efforts in reducing the national disease burden,” he said. Ehunabobrim Prah Agyensaim (2nd from left), Dr. Nii Nortey Hanson-Nortey, (1st from right) with other participants at the launch
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri