Accra, April 16, GNA - The public have been advised to adopt improved life styles and health care to avoid contracting diseases such as HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis. The people should therefore make curative and preventive health care services their priority by having good ventilation, practice cough hygiene, control public coughs and sneezing, avoid infection by sharing local drinks and utensils.

Mr Abudu Imoro, Programme Manager of Afro Global Alliance, a non-governmental organization said this when he addressed a sensitization workshop for 20 community volunteers at Sandema in the Builsa District of the Upper East Region. The workshop was organized by Afro Global Alliance with funding from the National TB Control Programme and the Global Fund after which a community durbar was organized for opinion leaders and elders of the communities to introduce the volunteers. The vision of the NGO is to draw and implement a sensitizing programme in TB/AIDS and related diseases control by empowering especially the youth and public to stay healthy.

Mr Imoro urged the volunteers to undertake regular visits to the churches, mosques, markets and social gatherings to sensitize the people on the effects of tuberculosis and other related diseases. The workshop for the community volunteers, which is the first of its kind in the District, was to create awareness about the effects of tuberculosis to the socio-economic development of the people. The volunteers have been assigned to the various communities in the Builsa District to undertake house to house campaigns to discuss TB issues and personal hygiene to the people. He said TB was becoming a pandemic especially in the rural areas because of the ignorance and poverty levels of the people and so there was the need for concerted efforts to address the situation before it goes out of control.

Mr Anthony Aleka, Builsa District Director of Health Services who was one of the resource persons advised the volunteers to conduct their exercise with human feeling to create the needed avenue for the people to accept improve health care facilities in their areas. He said Tb is a curable disease and so all should cooperate with the health personnel to help prevent its spread among especially the vulnerable in the society. The District TB Disease Control Officer, Mr Jacque Aparimasa said there is the need for collaboration between the public and private sectors to fight the disease since health workers alone cannot monitor and manage the disease without public support. Mr Aparimasa advised that TB patients who start treatment should be observed and checked about the resistance of drug usage so as to prevent resistant strains.