Ghana On Target To Reduce Child Mortality - WHO

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has observed that Ghana is likely to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on reducing child mortality and improving maternal health by 2015.

According to the WHO representative to Ghana, Dr Daniel Kertesz, the organisation was convinced that Ghana could achieve the MDGs four and five following the significant progress it has made in both areas over the past years and the prospects that health delivery in Ghana would improve as the years drew nearer.

He said statistics available indicated that child and maternal mortality were increasingly on the decline due to some measures that the government of Ghana, together with its partners like the WHO and UNICEF were implementing.

Dr Kertesz made these observations in an interview with the Daily Graphic, after paying a courtesy call on the Northern Regional Minister, Alhaji Mustapha Ali Idris, as part of a four-day tour of some districts in the region.

The tour is to enable him to gather first hand information on progress made in the delivery of health care to the people in the Northern Region and the challenges ahead.

Apart from the Tamale metropolis, Dr Kertesz, who was in the company of the Northern Regional Director of Health Services, Dr Akwasi Twumasi and other health staff, would also be touring the Tolon-Kumbungu, West and East Mamprusi, Gushegu and Bunkpurugu/Yunyoo districts.

The WHO representative said his organisation was particularly excited about Ghana's health surveillance and monitoring systems, which had helped the country detect a wild Poliovirus in some parts of the Northern Region.

Alhaji Iddris expressed the gratitude of the government and people of Ghana to the WHO for its support to the country.

“With your support, we have been able to make several improvements in many areas of health delivery in the country,” he stated.

Alhaji Idris said the Northern Regional Coordinating Council was working with the Regional Health Directorate to map out various strategies and motivational packages to attract and retain quality health staff in the region.

Dr Twumasi said his office would ensure that the WHO representative visited some remote areas in the region to appreciate the difficulties Ghana faced in its bid to promote health delivery in the country.

Story by Salifu Mohammed Nurudeen