Female students urged to adopt good personal hygiene
The Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG) has called on authorities of senior high schools (SHSs) to effectively supervise students to adopt good personal hygiene and also keep their dormitories and lavatories clean.
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That, according to the Southern Zonal Manager of the PPAG, Nana Ama Oforiwaa-Sam, was necessary to reduce the spread of infectious diseases, especially, reproductive tract infections (RTI) among female students.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic in an interview, Nana Oforiwaa-Sam attributed the cause of the RTI in some schools to the insanitary environmental and unhygienic lifestyles among some students especially, the females.
She said personal hygiene was necessary to reduce the rate of infections , some of which could lead to infertility in female students.
Nana Oforiwaa-Sam made the call after the PPAG had held Leadership Development Programmes (LDP) in some selected senior high schools (SHSs) in the Central Region.
The programme
The programme, an initiative of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), with assistance from the Management Sciences for Health (MSH), focuses on promoting personal hygiene and maintaining healthy sanitation facilties in schools.
She said school nurses who operated school clinics should also counsel students who visited their facilities with cases of RTI to enable them to understand the causes and effects of such infections.
Support family planning
In another interview, the Northern Zonal Director of the PPAG, Mr Peter Dakura, said the implementation of the programme established that there was a high incidence of premarital sex among the youth in the Northern Region.
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He explained that due to the situation, there was a high rate of unwanted pregnancy, since most of the youth in the region could not have access to modern contraceptives, stressing that the unsupportive attitude of family members, due to traditional and religious beliefs in some parts of the region, also compounded the problem.
He said under the LDP, family planning sensitisation programmes were held in some communities. He, therefore, called on governmental and non-governmental organisations and civil society organisations to support such education programmes to make them more effective.