Battling With Cholera In The 21st Century

We live in a country, Ghana, where our orientation to health has been that we only go to the health facility when we are terminally ill. Basic hygiene and disease prevention practices have been a preserve of only a few.

A chunk of our annual national budget is spent on curative medicine, yet we are still recording number of morbidities and mortalities to preventable diseases and risky health behaviours. This phenomenon, I think has been so because little attention has been given to preventive medicine in Ghana.

With regard to the current cholera outbreak in Ghana, for that matter, the capital city-Accra, the simple inference and Public Health analogy I could draw from the outbreak is that; we are ingesting our faecal remains. This may sound quite unpleasant but that is what it means- the transmission of the cholera bacteria occurs primarily by drinking water or food that has been contaminated by faecal remains of an infected person; including people who have no immediate symptoms. Moreover, the pathogen (vibrio cholerae) is not likely to spread directly from one person to another; therefore causal contact with an infected person is not a risk factor for becoming infected.

Interestingly, cholera, typhoid and other diarrhoea diseases is no respecter of persons. Anyone is susceptible to cholera; not excluding our policy makers and the first gentleman of our land. That notwithstanding, individuals living in places with inadequate water treatment, poor sanitation and inadequate hygiene (irregular hand washing before meals and after visiting the toilet) are obviously at greater risk of contracting the pathogen.

Whose responsibility is it to ensure we don't record this annual cholera outbreak? Government or the citizenry? I think it should be a shared responsibility on both parties. As it stands now, both parties seem not to be playing their parts well, hence the annual outbreak. It is the responsibility of the citizen to ensure personal hygiene and to keeping their surrounding clean. It is also the responsibility of the government to clean our choked gutters and keep public paces clean through environmental health regulations. It is also the responsibility of government to utilise that wing of its Ministry of Health to regularly engage the public to educate the citizenry on disease prevention and the need to live healthy lives.

In the last thirty days, cholera has taken about thirty (30) lives to the grave. Ironically, government on Thursday, 14th August, 2014, is reported to have allotted about six million Ghana cedis to combating the future occurrence of Ebola in Ghana. Despite it is a good proactive measure, I however find it difficult reconciling that move by government to the cholera situation that has taken precious lives already. An indictment on our effort to sustaining our human resource-base for the development of our nation, I think.

Yes, I agree with the chorus of associating one of the causes of cholera outbreak to filthy and choked gutters. However, I would want to challenge government and other stakeholders to go the extra mile to establish other possible associations such as proliferation of sachet water producers and poor personal hygiene by food vendors.

Unlike few years back, sachet water producers have now flooded our small towns and cities to my surprise. I fear most of these producers may not meet quality standards. Who knows, most of the water tables of some of these sachet water producers may be contaminated by sewages during the wet season particularly the capital city-Accra.

Poor personal hygiene by food vendors. Isn't it amazing to have noticed that majority of food vendors across the country still serve ready-to-eat foods with bare hands; in fact, unwashed bare hands. Of course, most of these vendors do these things out of ignorance.

I therefore call on the Food and Drugs Authority to ensure that foods serve by food vendors is safe for public consumption.

The time has come, in fact, long overdue for us as Ghanaians to take a paradigm shift to being conscious of the myriad of diseases and risky health behaviours that has bedevilled us and to increase our control over their causes and determinants.

Author: Gbolu Samson
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