Fighting COVID-19 : Agona West steps up campaign

The Agona West Municipal Assembly (AWMA) in the Central Region has intensified public education and sensitisation to whip up awareness of the coronavirus pandemic to prevent the spread of the dreadful disease in the municipality.

The assembly, through its Municipal Public Health Emergency Management Committee headed by the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Mrs Justina Marigold Assan, has intensified education on the deadly virus which has affected hundreds of thousands of people and claimed the lives of more than 15,000 people across the world.

Committee’s activities

Additionally, the assembly has constituted a sensitisation and education committee, comprising heads of decentralised departments such as the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Information Services Department (ISD), Environmental Health and Sanitation and Ghana Health Service, criss-crossing market centres, lorry terminals and other public places to increase public knowledge of the virus and ways to prevent its spread.

Also, through local FM stations and Community Information Centres (CIC) in various communities, the residents are being educated by the committee and assembly members in the various electoral areas on the disease to observe social distancing and other environmental practices that can prevent them from contracting the virus.

Similarly, the assembly has procured nose masks, gloves, sanitisers and veronica buckets and placed them at government agencies, health facilities and departments to encourage regular hand washing among staff and the general public who visit such establishments.

Furthermore, public toilets in particular have also been provided with veronica buckets, soap and sanitisers to encourage users to properly wash their hands under running water after using the facility in a bid to prevent the spread of the virus.

Municipality on alert

Speaking to the Daily Graphic at Agona Swedru yesterday, Mrs Assan said the municipality was on high alert to avert the spread of the disease.

She said the assembly had intensified education at Swedru, the municipal capital, since it served as a major transit route to several districts both in the Central and Eastern regions.

For instance, she explained that on Mondays and Thursdays, which are observed as market days, thousands of people from many communities trooped to the town, and that increasing public awareness would help curb the spread of COVID-19 in the area.

Loitering children

The MCE expressed concern about parents allowing their children to loiter in the midst of the pandemic due to the closure of all schools, stressing that “such children are being exposed to danger and must, therefore, be kept at home”.

“What is disturbing is that some parents have taken advantage of the closure of schools to let their children sell along the streets and lorry parks, which exposes them to danger,” she pointed out.