Professor Fred Newton Binka, an Epidemiologist, has called on health professionals in Ghana to channel their efforts towards the fight against a malaria free country and not aim to control the disease.
He said the ultimate goal of Ghana as a country should not be to partner with the disease, but be in the pre-elimination and elimination phases, insisting that controlling the disease meant that Ghana had agreed to partner with malaria, “And I don’t think that is what our main goal is.”
Citing the 2016 – 2030 Global Technical Strategy for malaria which was adopted by the World Health Assembly in May 2015, the Professor indicated that the strategy provided comprehensive framework to guide countries in their efforts to accelerate the process towards malaria elimination.
Professor Binka, also a Former Vice Chancellor of the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS), made the call when he addressed stakeholders at a symposium to commemorate the 2022 World Malaria Day celebration on the theme: “Harness innovation to reduce the malaria disease burden and save lives.”
He noted that the Global Technical Strategy had three main pillars used to eliminate and not control malaria, and reminded stakeholders at the programme that the first pillar was to ensure universal access to malaria prevention, diagnoses and treatment.
According to the Professor, Ghana had done considerably well in the first pillar, and that the second pillar, which was to accelerate efforts towards the elimination and attainment of malaria free status, should be achieved within the shortest possible time.
He said the third pillar was intended to transform malaria surveillance into core interventions like the malaria vaccine roll out, the bed nets distribution and the seasonal malaria chemoprevention should also include other supporting elements like harnessing, innovation and expanding research to enable Ghana eliminate the disease.
Professor Binka further called for the setup of independent system that would put stakeholders including the private and public sectors, and the community-based onto one common platform to share information, access and transformation of available information which could be done either monthly, quarterly, biennially or annually.
“We must know what is going on, and today, it is possible to bring the community based, the private and public sectors information together under one web-based system,” the former Vice Chancellor said.
Source: mywordfmonline.com /Gaspard Ayuureneeya