Covid-19 fight: HERPol-Africa urge Ghanaians to keep up the fight

Dr. Osman Dufailu, the Executive Director, HERPol-Africa

HERPol-Africa, a Health, Education and Research non-governmental organization (NGO), based in Tamale is calling on Ghanaians not to let their guards down on the COVID-19 pandemic fight.

HERPol-Africa noted that in the midst of rise and fall of the pandemic, what the citizenry needed to do is to increase vigilantism and observance of the safety protocols.

Dr. Osman Dufailu, the Executive Director for HERpol-Africa in an interactive meeting with the media in Tamale said the COVID-19 pandemic was real and still exists as against belief by many.

"So first of all I will want to inform the public that COVID is a reality, not a myth, and we there is the need for us to fight collectively and it is not an individual, so whichever action you take, we all need to be responsible by protecting ourselves, we are not protecting ourselves alone we are protecting our communities. So as long as we have the Interest of our community we need to continually adhere to the safety protocols," he said.

Dr. Dufailu noted that the importation of the COVID-19 vaccine to be used in Ghana contributed to the large public outcry and the misconceptions around the pandemic.

He therefore advised policy makers to use local-based methods in fighting epidemics such as the covid-19 and its associates.

"With regards to policymakers, there is the need for them to take research very serious, they don't have to take the wholesale approaches that has worked in other societies in our societies. They need to understand our problems so that we will be able to use the appropriate resources to death our peculiar problems."

He stated that "One important thing for instance is, the purchase of the vaccine to give to our people. We as policymakers contribute to the misconceptions, I believe when you cook your own food, you trust what you eat, so if we as a country have been able to produce our own vaccines, I don't think our people would shy away from those vaccines. So going forward, we need to take research very seriously, preventive epidemiology to survey and know the problem and to research to develop our own drugs and vaccines, I believe when we know our problem and we give our solutions, our people will not problem accepting our solutions".

COMMUNITY SUPPORT SCHEME

Dr. Dufailu noted that recently the NGO launched the COVID-19 Interventions and Awareness Outreach (CIAO) Project to deepen the awareness creation and also support households in combatting the disease.

He explained that phase two of the CIAO Project is a three-month initiative that began in October and will end in December this year.

He added that it is being implemented in partnership with the 'Mastercard Foundation' through 'STRATCOMM AFRICA.

The Executive Director further explained that a total of 36 communities in the Northern Region are benefiting from the project.

He opined that the project seeks to broaden the scope of the COVID-19 awareness campaign while providing self-employable skills to help improve the livelihoods of residents in the implementing communities.

He stated that through the project, beneficiaries within the communities would receive some relief items and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to protect them from the virus and help lessen the socio-economic impact on them.

"With the first phase was mainly creating awareness, providing skills to people, and now is an extension. We have extended the number of communities from 30 to 36. We are also not only providing a new crop of communities with skills to be able to be resilient through the disease and beyond, but we are also going to try to empower the ones that we have already trained or provided with skills with startups so that they can also boost the local economy. We don't have to stop because of the virus, we have to be resilient and adapt and survive beyond the virus," he emphasised.