The government has released GH¢5 million for a national public education campaign on cholera prevention and control to help curb the epidemic in the country.

The Minister of Health, Joseph Yieleh Chireh, announced this when he launched the campaign at Maamobi in Accra Friday.

The campaign, under the auspices of the Ministry, the Ghana Health Service and Better Ghana Management Service Limited, an environmentally-friendly private company, covers the whole country but would focus more on regions affected by the disease - the Great Accra, Central, Eastern, Upper West and Northern regions.

It involves door-to-door visits by health promotion officers using motor cycles and mega-phones to educate the public, especially those in the rural communities with preventive messages such as the washing of hands with soap after visiting the toilet, before eating and cooking.

Mr. Chireh said a technical ministerial taskforce comprising the Ministries of Interior, Environment, Science and Technology, Water Resources, Works and Housing and the Health had been instituted and to hold regular meetings to assess and discuss ways and means to reduce the spread of the disease.

A similar technical committee comprising health experts has been put in place to review the cholera situation and map out appropriate strategies and plans to curb the epidemic.

He regretted that the disease which broke out in September last year in the Central Region had now spread to the West Gonja District of the Northern region where there are reported cases increasing the number of infected regions from four to five.

Mr. Chireh called on Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies to ensure the enforcement of bye-laws on sanitation to control the spread of cholera and other communicable diseases.

Giving an update of the cholera situation, he said since September, the infection figures had risen from 4,586 to 5,308 with 67 deaths.

Mr. Chireh urged the public to take the educational messages seriously and abide by them adding, "We can contain cholera if we observe personal hygiene".

He said treatment of the disease is free.

People should therefore, report symptoms of diarrhoea and vomiting for early treatment.

The Director-General of Health Service, Dr. Elias Sory, called on the public to desist from blaming witches for cholera related deaths explaining that "when you get cholera it means you have eaten human faeces. It has nothing to do with witches and wizards".

Instead, he advised that people should take preventive measures to curb the spread of the disease.

The General Manager of Better Ghana Management Service, Mrs Beatrice Amponsah, said her outfit's collaboration with the ministry and the GHS was to ensure that everybody in Ghana was healthy to enable people to contribute to national development.

Mrs. Amponsah explained that hand washing was important because 70 per cent of the cholera diseases could be prevented through hand washing with soap.

She presented 20 washing buckets popularly called "veronica buckets" and ten mega-phones to the Member of Parliament for Ayawaso East and Deputy Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Dr. Ahmed Mustapha, to assist in the campaign in the constituency.