Nutrition, hygiene crucial to good health-Quashigah

The Minister of Health, Major Courage Quashigah (rtd), says preventing ill health through good nutrition and hygiene was as important as curative measures such as the adequate supply of drugs and availability of health personnel and facilities.

He said, whilst people were usually concerned with cures for ailments, few showed equal interest in all the measures that one could take to minimise the occurrence of diseases.

The Health Minister said these when he attended the World Health Assembly (WHA) under the theme; “Global Health Security, Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations (GAVI) meeting and the Commonwealth Health Ministers (CHM) meeting.

This was contained in a statement signed by Rebecca Ackwonu, Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Health Service (GHC) in Accra on Tuesday,June 5, 2007 which quoted Major Quashigah as saying that, the time had come for Africans to stop solving problems on the continent by completely looking up to more developed countries.

“Our ability to come up with solutions within the health sector through observing our own peculiar circumstances was crucial to ensuring good health on the continent”, the statement said.

The Health Minister explained that good nutrition and hygiene had a direct link to the occurrence of diseases, adding that, apart from exceptional cases, taking care of the former certainly had a corresponding impact on the latter.

He said extensive education on preventive health measures both in schools and within communities could go a long way to prevent the occurrence of diseases not only in Ghana but the continent as a whole.

Also with the Minister on the two-week trip were Dr Elias Sory, Director General, Ghana Health Services, Dr Edward Addai, Director of Policy Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation at the Ministry of Health, Madam Salimatu Abdul Salam, Director of Administration, and Mr. Lepowura Jawula, Chief Director.

The rest were Mr Isaac Adams, Director for Research and Information Management, Ministry of Health, Mr Emanuel Agyarko, Chief Executive Officer of the Food and Drugs Board, Ms Ema Ofori Agyemang, Assistant Director-Office of the Minister and Mrs Augustine Demeloo, Principal for Midwifery School, Hohoe.

Source: GNA