West African Postgraduate College of Environmental Health honours three outstanding personalities

The 8th annual scientific conference of the West African Postgraduate College of Environmental Health (WAPCEH) has ended with the conferment of college honorary awards on the three outstanding personalities who have over the years promoted the environmental health profession in West Africa.

They are Dr. Melehoir Athanase J.C. Aissi, the Director General of the West African Health Organization (WAHO), Professor Muostafa Mijiyawa, the immediate past Minister of Health and Public Hygiene of Togo, and Professor Agnon A. Koffi Balogou, the President, Regional Council for Health Professionals Education at WAHO.

The 8th WAPCEH Annual Scientific Conference, held on the general theme "The Connection of Environmental Health, Global Health, and Determinants for a Healthy Population in the ECOWAS Region," has ended in Lome, Togo.

The conference was held at the Village du Benin, University de Lome, Togo, from September 8th to 14th, 2024. It also elected new executives as well as inducted new fellows and environmental health practitioners into membership, a statement obtained by the Media Coalition Against Open Defecation in Ghana revealed.

Annually, the college's fellows meet to discuss topical issues in environmental health and release a communiqué to the governments of member countries for their urgent attention and consideration.

Dr. Athanase, on behalf of the award winners, emphasized the importance of environmental health in attaining holistic health.

He added that achieving holistic health will be highly impossible until all other health professionals follow the course of diseases and advocate for them to be addressed.

Professor A. N. Amadi of Nigeria, who is the newly elected president of the college, thanked the DG of WAHO for his continued support of the college.

The conference also serves as a platform to induct new Fellows and award outstanding practitioners all over the subregion.

Two Environmental Health Professionals from Ghana, Sanitarian Florence S. Kuukyi, Director of Public Health of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, and Sanitarian Emmanuel K. Gmanab, President, of Ghana Environmental Health Officers Association (GEHOA), were inducted into the college.

The event also saw the election of various chapter executives, while the Ghana Chapter elected new executives to serve a 2-year term from September 2024 to September 2026.

WAPCEH was founded by a resolution of persons with appropriate postgraduate qualifications and experience in environmental health at a West African Scientific Forum for Environmental Health Professionals held in Badagry, Lagos, Nigeria, on 22nd and 23rd June 2015.

The college aims to produce Environmental Health Specialists of the highest standards who will provide excellent world-class services in teaching, practice, and professional research in environmental health services.

According to the statement, the membership of the college is made up of more than a hundred practitioners with appropriate postgraduate qualifications and experience in environmental health officials.

The members were from Ghana, The Gambia, Mali, Benin, Niger, Togo, Sierra Leone, Cote d'Ivoire, Liberia, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Cape Verde, Cameroon, and Nigeria.

The college is supervised by the West African Health Organization (WAHO) and is one of the six WAHO recognized colleges like the West African College of Surgeons (WACS), the West African College of Physicians (WACP), the West African Postgraduate College of Pharmacy (WAPCP), the West African College of Nursing (WACN), and the West African Postgraduate College of Laboratory Scientists (WAPCLS).

The Ghana Chapter of the WAPCEH was inaugurated at its 4th Scientific Conference held at the Institute of African Studies of the University of Ghana in 2019.