The Dizem Taaba Group in the Kassena Nankana area, Upper East Region, has embarked on various measures to fight the spread of Coronavirus in the area. The group, made up of natives of the area and their friends, has in the past few weeks donated Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to the two Health Directorates in the area, engaged traditional rulers to support the efforts of the health directorates and the government in fighting the virus and set up community and zonal volunteers in the area to help in educating community members on the pandemic response protocols and guidelines. Presenting Public Address Systems to the volunteers as part of the support measures, Dr Denis Chirawurah, the activities Coordinator of the group said “the volunteers support programme is one key component of the broader Dizemtaaba support effort working collaboratively with political, traditional and health leaders to strengthen government efforts towards an effective community response against COVID 19”

He said the Group had engaged all the 10 paramount Chiefs and their Divisional Chiefs in the area, on measures to safeguard their communities and presented veronica buckets and carbolic soap to them”.

He said the 15 volunteers were working in zonal teams of three in five zones of the entire Kassena/Nankana area, “The volunteers have been trained and provided with basic logistics to carry out on-the-spot sensitization to youth groups, drinking spots, food joint operators market women and trade groups. They are also able to identify violations of prescribed directives against the COVID 19 fight, and bring such to the attention of the relevant authorities. They are working closely with health authorities in the zones and the traditional authorities”.

Dr Chirawurah said in order to sustain their zeal and strengthen the fight against the COVID 19, “Dizemtaaba, through its UK network affiliate, the Nimoro group and Kassena Nankana League, marshalled resources to procure the public address systems, media resources in the form of drama, stories, messages and videos in both Kasem and Nankam languages for their work”.

“The Dizemtaaba group believes that the resilience of our communities to the COVID 19 pandemic require strong social capital for collective action, where many women, men, and children are willing and able to make the small or large personal sacrifices necessary to stop the disease before it spreads” , he added.

Mr Benson Azure Nsoh, the Kassena/Nankana Municipal Director of Health Services, commended the group and said its support had helped resource health facilities in the area to fight COVID-19.

He said the Municipality had so far recorded two COVID-19 confirmed cases which were imported and submitted 200 samples of suspected cases including; contacts of the two confirmed cases for testing.

“We have received 150 results of the samples and they are all negative”, he said.

The Kassena/Nankana West District Chief Executive, Mr Gerard Atawogye who witnessed the ceremony, thanked the group for the support and said both Assemblies had procured medical supplies for the health management teams, veronica buckets for the various markets and public places and distributed facemasks as part of measures to contain the virus.