Sang (N/R), Dec.16, GNA - The government has allocated 500 million cedis to the Ministry of Health for free treatment of guinea worm patients in the country.

Persons infested with the disease should now feel free to attend health institutions for treatment to help eradicate the disease. Dr. Seidu Korkor, National Programme Manager, Guinea Worm Eradication Programme announced this at a meeting with Miss Lamisi Mbillah, Ghana's 2005 Beauty Queen and community members at Sang in the Yendi District.

Miss Mbillah is on a four-day working tour of guinea worm endemic communities in the Northern Region to share words of encouragement with the people to help stem the spread of the disease. Dr. Korkor said the government has asked the health workers to consider the guinea worm disease as a medical emergency and as such more filters and abates have been imported into the country to help eradicate the disease.

He said 10 Guinea Worm Containment Centres would be built in the Northern Region, especially at guinea worm endemic districts for the treatment of the disease.

He said guinea worm patients who reported at the centres for treatment would take away home a mosquito net and a bed sheet, adding: "All these are incentives put in place by the government and its development partnership to encourage infested persons to attend the centres".

Dr. Korkor therefore called on community leaders to support government's efforts by evoking traditional powers on their people to discourage them from indiscriminate infestation of water sources. Miss Mbillah, cautioned members of the communities not to let the free gift of a mosquito net and bed sheet encourage them to get infected with the disease, since the impact of the disease was greater than a mere mosquito net or a bed sheet.

She urged people in the communities to take greater interest in the health of the children, many of who were suffering from the guinea worm disease.

The former beauty queen called on the people to put into practice the directives of the health workers to ensure the rapid eradication of the disease by next year to ensure that Ghana celebrates its 50th anniversary as a guinea worm free country. Mr. Jim Niquette, Resident Technical Adviser of the Carter Centre in Tamale, announced that UNICEF was providing two billion cedis for the provision of potable water for the Sang community, which was one of the endemic areas in the district. He observed that for sometime now the people had not been obeying methods and practices taught them by health workers to eradicate the disease and called on them to change their attitudes for the better. 16 Dec. 06