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HEALTH

Asanko Gold takes steps to reduce Malaria in catchment areas

As part of 2018 world Malaria Day celebration, the Asanko Gold Ghana, one of the largest Gold mines in Ghana has commemorate the day at with a grand durbar of chiefs and people at Manso-Adubia the district capital of the newly created Amansie South District.

Date Created : 5/2/2018 3:46:29 AM : Story Author : Paul Antwi / Ghanadistricts.com

Speaking at the function, the Executive General Manager-Operations of Asanko Gold Mines, Mr Charles Amoah said "Health is wealth" as the saying goes and as such, health is a basic human need and right of everyone. Therefore, Asanko is committed to ensuring that the health of employees and members of their catchment communities is promoted and maintained to the optimum.

He said Malaria as we have all heard is a public health concern not only in Ghana but also in most parts of Africa and other areas of the world. Globally, 3.3 billion people in 106 countries are at risk of malaria.

Every year Ghana joins the rest of World Health organisation member countries to commemorate the world Malaria Day. This day gives us the opportunity to tell the sad stories of malaria, to share our success stories with other countries, to learn from one another and to highlight our effort and reflect on how to scale up what has worked for us.

He said it will surprise you to know that in 2017 an estimate of 10.2 million suspected cases of malaria were reported in Ghana. On the average, there were about 27,978 suspected cases recorded on a daily basis.

Mr Amoah said Asanko in February 2018 launched the Asanko Malaria control programme under the theme "Reducing the burden of malaria, our collective responsibility" Asanko decided to roll out this programme out of the realisation that Malaria had cost implication on our productivity high cost of medical expenditure and high number of excuse duty hours granted employees afflicted with Malaria.

He said Asanko rolled-out a mine-wide education and awareness campaign on Malaria, through our monthly safety meetings, all Asanko and contractor employees were educated on Malaria; its cause,signs and symptoms and preventive strategies. We did not just end it there, Asanko trained 40 Malaria safe mine champion who will continue to educate and drive Malaria-related activities in their respective departments until this disease is eliminated. We will be conducting larviciding to destroy mosquito breeding grounds in a bid to reduce Malaria.

He said Asanko last week, through a collaboration with the private sector Malaria prevention (PSMP), initiative of the Johns Hopkins University centre for communication programmes, trained Sixty (60) community Malaria Champions. They were nominated by the District Directorate with representation from all the health facilities and communities in the district. These community Malaria Champions have been tasked to educate, drive and ensure that all members of the community are protected from Malaria infections. We assure that as time goes on we will set up a monitoring team to evaluate the efforts and success of the community Malaria Champions.

He thanked the chiefs, Queen Mothers, members of the catchment communities and the contractors for their immense support in making this programme a successful one.He also thanked the Amansie west District Health Directorate for working closely with them through out the entire process.

The District Health Director Mr Dominic Dobbin thanked the Asanko Gold mines for their continue support to health sector, by supplying hospital equipments to all health facilities and also trained health personnel in the the district.

Nana Adusei Kwadampem II, Gyasehene of Manso-Adubia chaired the function