Health Minister Kwabena Mintah Akandor is in Wa in the Upper West Region with a team of experts to obtain firsthand information and assess the meningitis outbreak in the area.
The Minister is expected to appear before Parliament next week to give an update on the disease outbreak in the country.
Currently, 10 out of the 42 confirmed cases have so far died from the disease in the Upper West Region.
Health officials have been on high alert for any possible outbreak of the disease in the country as the outbreak intensifies. All affected individuals are being treated for free in the region.
Already, a delegation had earlier been dispatched by the Minister to the region to assess the situation.
“So, we have put a program together to be able to make sure that all these diseases are contained. Today, there was a meeting to evaluate our preparedness as a country. There were external partners who came to assess our preparedness, and I hope we are making progress. So, by tomorrow, we’ll have to touch base with the people in the affected communities to assess the situation,” Mr Akandoh said.
He added that, “We will be sending a rapid response team to go and assist with some medication that they need. We have to send them. And we have even announced that anybody within these catchment areas who are infected with this disease can go to hospital free of charge. I mean, irrespective of whether or not you have national health insurance, you will be taken care of. So, these are some of the measures we clearly have to get ourselves together to put in place and for cholera to we have thought of in vaccinating the people” he noted during 3news engagement with him on Monday.
The general public is encouraged to take in a lot of water and maintain proper body moisture in this dry weather condition as the country remain prone to experiencing the seasonal cerebrospinal meningitis outbreaks from this month.
