The country has recorded rising levels of stroke cases in the last three years, with the numbers going up in thousands per 100,000 members of the population.
A Pubic Health Physician and Health Systems Researcher of the Ministry of Health (MoH), Dr Mavis Sakyi, who disclosed this in Accra on Monday, August 24, said almost 48 per cent of the stroke cases were in men from 30 to 49 years old, which she described as “quite alarming”.
Speaking at a national stakeholder consultation on Food Is Medicine (FIM) in Accra, she added that the staggering challenge was that they came in much worse forms, at stages technically described as “hemorrhagic strokes”, which usually would have a poor prognosis (a likely negative outcome of any treatment).
Dr Sakyi, who works in the Public Health and Health Promotion Unit of the Technical Coordination Directorate of MoH, gave the breakdown of the annual reported cases as 24,840 in 2023 which is 77.4 per 100,000 population in the country; 26,758 cases or 81.1 per 100,000 people in 2024, and 29,483 or 87.36 per 100,000 population in 2025.
Dr Sakyi said evidence showed that a large proportion of patients who were hypertensive and diabetic were not managing their conditions well, therefore leading to the complication of stroke.
“It could be that they are not getting their medication or they are getting it but they are not taking it,” he said.
She said diet was one important part of the management of those conditions which formed part of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs).
“This is why we have called the stakeholder meeting. We need to improve our diets, reduce unhealthy diets and help bring down the Non-Communicable Diseases burden,” she said.
She mentioned the Ashanti, Greater Accra, Volta and Oti regions as having the highest proportion of people having strokes.
Districts leading the chart are Oforikrom, Korle Klottey, Bekwai, Ayawaso West and Keta.
Stakeholder consultation
The Stakeholder consultation was organised by the MoH in collaboration with the School of Public Health of the University of Ghana to discuss how food and nutrition interventions can be integrated into the country’s healthcare programmes.
FIM has been defined as a spectrum of food-based interventions integrated into health care for people with specific health conditions and often nutrition or social risk.
It differs from general nutrition education because eligibility, food content and intensity are clinically informed and linked to a care plan.
Countries that have piloted and scaled FIM have demonstrated meaningful improvements in disease management, patient outcomes, and in some cases, reduced downstream healthcare costs.
It was expected that the meeting would come out with a context-appropriate understanding of FIM in the Ghanaian context, agreement on the parity of models and research ideas that Ghana should test, clearer institutional rules and the governance arrangement for a platform they hope to set up in Ghana.
Providing figures from the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Sakyi said the figures for hypertension and diabetes were equally high, and often translated into strokes when the patients had complications.
For hypertension, she said 549,527 cases were reported in 2023, which was 1,711.6 per 100,000 population, which went up in 2025 to 577,374 cases, that is 1,710.79 per 100,000 population.
Diabetes mellitus, on the other hand, recorded 181,769 cases in 2023, equivalent to 566.2 per 100,000 population as against 201,022 cases in 2025 or 595.64 per 100,000 population.
Dr Sakyi explained that stroke cases were high in men because they normally did not visit hospitals, compared to their female counterparts.
She explained that women had peculiar factors such as pregnancy, which increased their frequency of hospital visits that increased their chances of being screened.
For hypertension, the hotspot districts are Ayawaso West in Accra, Atwima Nwabiagya and Obuasi East in the Ashanti Region, Korle Klottey in Accra and New Juaben in the Ashanti Region, in that order.
For diabetes, Ayawaso West topped the hotspot districts chart, followed by Obuasi East, Kwahu West and Old Tafo.
Poor nutrition
The Director, Allied Health of MoH, Dr Ignatius Awinibuno, said poor nutrition, limited access to affordable healthy food choices and food environments that led to unhealthy choices were contributing to the NCD burden in the country.
“Nutrition and food provision services remain insufficiently integrated into our clinical pathways.
Something must be deliberately done about it, and I think this is what the FIM seeks to address.
“Food is Medicine approaches, such as produce prescriptions, medically tailored groceries and meals delivered alongside structured nutrition assessment, counselling, and clinical follow-up, are very important towards achieving our goals,” he explained.
The Vice-Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health, Dr Sebastian Sandaare, said Parliament recognised that NCDs were no longer a secondary health concern but a present national emergency taking lives prematurely, impoverishing households, reducing productivity, and placing growing pressure on the health system.
Describing FIM as timely, he explained that it connected prevention with treatment, clinical care with the food system, and professional advice with practical access to appropriate food.
The Head of the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at the School of Public Health, Professor Amos Laar, explained that the meeting was, among others, expected to determine how clinically appropriate food and nutrition services could become a critical component of healthcare delivery and food systems performance in Ghana.
