Ghana: CSM cases

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.ghananewsagency.org/s_health/r_12044/

CSM killed 25 people in 2009 in Upper East.
February 04, 2010

Bolgatanga, Feb, 4, GNA - The Upper East Region recorded 25 deaths as a result of the outbreak of Cerebrospinal Meningitis (CSM) between January 2009 and December 2009, .

Fourteen deaths have already been recorded between January 1st, 2010 and January 22, 2010 in the region.

The Upper East Regional Director of Ghana Health Service, Dr. John Koku Awoonor-Williams, said this during the opening of the Regional Health Review Meeting on Thursday under the theme" Upper East Region at 50 years; Achieving Better Health and Wealth Creation."

He said the 14 deaths early this year served as a warning and required urgent attention.

Dr Awoonor-William said his outfit was working closely with the national office to take steps to avert any major catastrophe witnessed in the Region in 1996-1997 when the region recorded 18,703 cases with 1,356 deaths.

He said the Regional Health Directorate had taken delivery of 100,000 doses of Polysaccharide AC vaccines for vaccination and the objective of the exercise was to reach 100,000 people.

Dr Awoonor-Williams complained about doctors who refused posting to the Region and said the doctor patient ratio remained almost the same one doctor to 34,000 patients.

He said another major problem facing health personnel in the Region was accommodation and appealed to other organizations to assist.



The Upper East Regional Minister, Mr. Mark Woyongo, commended the Management and Staff of the GHS for their hard work and urged them to keep it up.



He said it had been agreed that each of the nine districts sponsors five medical students as well as health personnel on yearly basis as a means of ensuring the availability of health staff in the Region.



He said he was engaging traditional leaders, Municipal and District assemblies and other relevant organizations to find ways of solving the perennial land problems in the Region to pave way for more health facilities to be built.



Mr. Woyongo indicated that the District Assemblies would continue to build Community Health Planning System (CHPS), adding the abandoned polyclinic in the Bolgatanga Municipality would be completed to augment the Regional Dospital.

GNA

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Ghana: CSM cases

Source: http://news.myjoyonline.com/health/201002/42491.asp

Outbreak of CSM: 17 killed
Last Updated: Tuesday, 23 February 2010, 8:37 GMT

A strange form of the deadly cerebrospinal meningitis (CSM) has killed 17 people and caused the hospitalisation of 78 others in the Upper West Region, with the Jirapa District being the worst hit.

In Jirapa alone, the disease, which experts say has gone beyond the epidemic threshold to become an outbreak, has killed eight people out of the 52 reported cases.

The situation has overwhelmed health workers in the region and at the national secretariat of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) due to the fact that the bacterium causing the current outbreak is a new strain, the W135, which is being seen in Ghana for the first time.

After a marathon meeting in Accra Monday involving the top hierarchy of the GHS and other health professionals, the Director-General of the GHS, Dr Elias Kavinah Sory, told the Daily Graphic that "because the bacterium is new, we do not readily have the required vaccine to contain.

He added, however, that the vaccine, which is expensive, could be made available through the World Health Organisation (WHO), hence the Ministry of Health (MoH), the GHS and the WHO were meeting to see how best to get the vaccine into the country.

According to him, when arrangements were concluded, the vaccine would be available within 48 hours.

Dr Sory said as soon as the vaccine was available, everyone within a determined radius of the area affected would be vaccinated, while the affected people continued to receive treatment.

He said when the infection started about six weeks ago, there were fewer cases reported but within the past two weeks it had gone beyond the epidemic threshold to become an outbreak.

He said, however, that Ghana had enough stock of the vaccine it had always used to contain previous epidemics and late last year it was made available to the areas normally affected by CSM.

The director-general stated that the outbreak was determined during a monitoring exercise and the GHS had since moved to contain the situation.

He stated that doctors in the affected area had been advised to undertake the right investigations and administer the right vaccine when they got cases.

The last time the country had an outbreak with fatalities was in 1999/2000.

Meningitis mainly occurs in northern Ghana following the long, hot dry months.

Risk factors include household overcrowding, smoking and exposure to smoke and close contact with an affected person.



Source: Daily Guide/Ghana

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Ghana: CSM cases

Source: http://news.myjoyonline.com/health/201002/42555.asp

CSM: 10 more die in Northern Region
Last Updated: Wednesday, 24 February 2010, 9:14 GMT

The outbreak of cerebrospinal meningitis (CSM) in the Upper West Region has spread to the Northern Region, killing 10 people out of the 54 reported cases of the disease.

This follows earlier reports of 17 deaths out of the 95 cases reported in the Upper West Region.

The 44 other people who were diagnosed with the disease in the Northern Region are undergoing treatment at various health centres in the region.

Unlike the situation in the Upper West Region, however, health officials in the Northern Region maintain that the situation there cannot be described as an outbreak, since the cases recorded fall below the alert threshold of each district, adding that no strange strain of the disease has so far been detected.

Briefing some members of the security agencies and the media, the Northern Regional Director of Health, Dr Akwasi Twumasi, said so far 13 out of the 20 districts in the region had recorded a number of cases over the past weeks.

The East Mamprusi District, he noted, so far topped the list of casualties with 11 reported cases, followed by Bunkurugu/Yunyoo with 10 cases.

Two districts, Saboba/Chereponi and Kpandai, and the Tamale metropolis also recorded six cases each.

Dr Twumasi asked residents of the region not to panic, since the situation was under control.

"This is the season for the disease and, therefore, the cases recorded are to be expected," he stated.

Explaining further, the Regional Surveillance Officer, Mr Edward Accrachie Abu, noted that every district in the region had its alert threshold and none of them had so far reached that alert threshold, "not to mention reaching an epidemic status".

He also said all the districts had their epidemic management teams, adding that since last year the teams had put in place adequate preparations control the spread of diseases such as CSM and tuberculosis.

Explaining why there had not been any massive vaccination in the region, Mr Abu noted that the vaccine for CSM was very expensive and limited.

He also said the disease came in various strains and so vaccination was done in accordance with the type of strain detected.

"Currently, we have vaccines for types A and C, which are the common strains in Ghana," he indicated.

The Upper West Regional Directorate of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has given the assurance that it has brought the situation there under control.

It said it had intensified its sensitisation on the disease and embarked on more announcements on radio and other media to increase the awareness level in the area.

The Upper West Regional Director of the GHS, Dr Alexis Nang Beifubah, who spoke to the Daily Graphic, advised residents to be on the lookout for the symptoms and signs of the disease and report suspected cases to the nearest health facility.

He mentioned some of the symptoms as headache, fever, neck pain, neck stiffness arid vomiting.

He said in the case of children, they become irritated and most often refused to eat.

Dr Beifubah further advised residents to take in more water, sleep in well ventilated rooms and avoid overcrowding.

Meanwhile, temperatures in the region continue to rise, with current levels ranging between 40 and 44 degrees Celsius.


Source: Daily Graphic/Ghana

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Ghana: CSM cases

Source: http://news.myjoyonline.com/health/201003/43338.asp


WHO team in Ghana to study CSM outbreak
Last Updated: Friday, 12 March 2010, 10:25 GMT

A team from the World Health Organization (WHO) is in the country to assess the outbreak of Cerebro- Spinal Meningitis (CSM) in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions.

Dr Benjamin Kunbuor, Minister of Health (MOH) made this known on Thursday when answering an urgent question by Dr Mathew Prempeh, Member of Parliament for Manhyia on the floor of Parliament.

He said mass vaccination against CSM was ongoing, explaining that the situation was getting stabilized.

Dr Mathew Prempeh asked about the measures the MOH was taking to prevent the perennial deaths caused by CSM in the three regions.

Dr Kunbuor said the Ministry had taken measures to manage the perennial epidemics and deaths in the regions including selective preventive vaccination.

He said although WHO does not recommend preventive vaccine, the MOH each year procured reasonable quantities of the A and C vaccines for communities at high risk in the belt...

 

[Ronan Kelly]

Re: Ghana: CSM cases

28 people succumb to CSM in the Upper East Region

Date: 27-Mar-2010


The Upper East Region has so far registered 228 cases of cerebrospinal meningitis of which 28 have died, Dr. James Akpablie, Upper East Regional Deputy Director of Health Services, has said.

He indicated that the Region had received vaccines on Cerebrospinal meningitis which would be administered in Bongo District, the declared epidemic zone of Cerebrospinal meningitis.

Dr. James Akpablie, who was addressing a seminar organized by the Regional health directorate on disaster preparedness in the Region on Friday, explained that many disaster situations could be mitigated if effective strategies were put in place in advance.

He therefore appealed to all stakeholders to be up and doing and to integrate disaster management issues into their development plans especially health related issues and to deal with them at the preventive stages before they become fully blown.

Dr. Akpablie appealed to heads of agencies and departments not to rely solely on government funds to carry out issues relating to disaster saying that the action plans just needed a bit of sacrifice and commitment.

The Deputy Director said the Region had not yet recorded any HINI case and that the National Health Directorate would soon roll out a programme to vaccinate everybody in the country against the H1N1.

He advised people to avoid crowded places, use their handkerchiefs when yawning or sneezing or coughing and to drink a lot of water.

Dr. Akpablie also advised people in the Region to be mindful of the outbreak of diseases such as cholera, malaria, typhoid as the rainy season drew closer.

Mr. Gaston Bozie, the Regional Health Promotion Officer, said during disaster periods, the nutritional status of children and women are compromised as they also fall prey to sexual and physical abuse.

He cited the 2007 flood that hit the Region where majority of women and children suffered malnutrition and some women raped and girls defiled as they wondered for shelter and warmth.

He therefore stressed the need for stakeholders to consider women and children when planning towards disaster.

The Seminar was aimed at among others, to develop a frame work for emergency preparedness and response peculiar to Northern Ghana, reduce vulnerability of the population to the consequences of any possible disasters, develop emergency communication plan and to share experiences on Disaster.

It was attended by selected departments, agencies, and Non-Governmental Organizations including health staff from the three Northern Regions.

Participants were taken through topics including causes, preventive and effects of diseases, risk, vulnerability assessment, mitigation, communicable diseases and Avian flue.

Source: GNA


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