Set up Ebola response team — Prof Dodoo
A former President of the Ghana Pharmaceutical Society, Professor Alex Dodoo, has called for the establishment of a crisis response centre to provide regular and timely official information on the Ebola disease.
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He also advocated the formation of a tactical team to, on a daily basis, state what the nation would do if any Ghanaian living in the country tested positive for the disease.
Prof. Dodoo was speaking at a workshop organised by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health in Accra.
The workshop was to create a forum for officials in the health sector to brief Parliament on the steps being taken to ensure that the disease is contained if it becomes prevalent in Ghana.
Prof. Dodoo said that Ghana had failed in the past 57 years to respond promptly and adequately to the Ebola crisis, adding that if the country underestimated the disease, many lives could be lost if there was an outbreak.
He said the World Health Organisation (WHO) had expressed its willingness to establish a crisis response centre which would operate on a daily basis if the Government of Ghana was willing to provide resources for the endeavour.
He said the country also needed a communication plan to reach out to all Ghanaians and the messages would have to be clear and co-ordinated and targeted.
"Country preparedness and effective communication is key in managing the situation. Having multiple sources of information on Ebola creates confusion in the minds of Ghanaians. We need to have a single source of information and that information must come from the Ministry of Health and must be on a daily basis," he said.
GMA
The President of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), Dr Kwabena Poku-Adusei, called for the establishment of an Ebola fund as the resources made available to manage the disease were not adequate.
He said most hospitals in the country were cash-strapped and could not manage the situation and added that the country’s entry points needed to be secure to ensure that visitors to the country were screened at those points.
National Response Plan
The acting Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Badu Sarkodie, said a national preparedness and response plan had been developed using a framework recommended by the WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
The budget for the implementation of the plan was GH¢32 million.
He said the immediate budget needed was GH¢11 million.
So far, he said, GH¢940,000 had been released to the Ministry of Health which the Ghana Health Service (GHS) was using to finance essential components of the preparedness activities such as printing and distribution of essential materials, public education, surveillance at the borders, isolation facilities and laboratory tests.
Techiman fruit bats
On the possibility of fruit bats in the country spreading the disease, Dr Sarkodie said bats found in the 37 Military Hospital area had been found not to be carrying the disease.
He, however, added that those in the Techiman area were found to have the Ebola antibodies but not the antigen.
Further tests, he said, were being carried out by the Game and Wildlife Department of the Forestry Commission.
An antibody is any of a large variety of proteins normally present in the body or produced in response to an antigen which it neutralises, thus producing an immune response.
An antigen, on the other hand, is any substance (as a toxin or enzyme) which stimulates an immune response in the body.
Parliamentary Committee
The Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health, Mr Joseph Yieleh Chireh, directed the GHS to liaise with Prof. Dodoo to establish a single source of information on the disease.
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He also directed the GHS to form an Ebola response team and present the list of members to the committee.