Accra, Jan. 22, GNA - The Ministry of Health (MOH) has doubled its budgetary commitment to Guinea worm eradication for 2007 to 10 billion cedis from five billion cedis in 2006.

The fund, Major Courage Quashigah (rtd), Sector Minister, explained would be made available immediately to support national programmes and interventions including field operations such as free treatment of the disease and social mobilization and marketing programmes targeted at eradicating the disease at the earliest possible time.

Speaking at a media workshop on the campaign to eradicate guinea worm from Ghana, Major Quashigah said the funding would also provide for improved community education; vehicles and motor cycles to improve training and motivation of volunteers in the fight against the disease, which he described as a national priority.

The workshop was organized by MOH in collaboration with its main partner in the fight against guinea worm in Ghana, the US-based Carter Centre and was attended by about 50 media practitioners to discuss the situation in the eradication effort as well as educate and solicit their support in the fight against the disease. Major Quashigah announced that Former US President Jimmy Carter, Founder of the Carter Centre, would visit the country from February 7 to February 8 to assess progress made so far in the eradication of the disease.

Ghana has the second highest guinea worm infection rate in the world after Sudan.

Major Quashigah said the many interventions by the Government and its partners had resulted in the reduction of the disease by an average of around 22 per cent per year within the last two years. He said though the Government saw that as a positive change, more efforts had to be put in to accelerate the drive to total eradication of the disease that was mainly endemic in the Northern sector, which was faced with acute water problems due to lack of underground water sources.

He said the Ministry had, therefore, put in place several changes in the past six months and was in the process of taking additional steps like the provision of water facilities for nine most affected districts via the Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing and other partners. It has also stepped up the marketing and awareness campaign. He called on opinion leaders in endemic communities to help in the total eradication of the disease by educating their members on the need to filter their water and also prevent people with the disease from entering water sources.

Mr Jim Niquette, Country Technical Advisor, the Carter Centre, said his organisation had been involved in the eradication effort since 1989 when the national intervention started and expressed the hope that with the support of members of communities affected by the disease, there would be a total eradication in Ghana as achieved by other countries in the West Africa Sub-Region.

Dr Andrew Seidu Korkor, National Programme Manager of the Guinea Worm Eradication Programme, said though the disease was endemic in Ghana, it was more prevalent within regions and district lying within the Volta Basin, principally, Northern, Volta and Brong Ahafo Regions. He said when the national eradication programme was launched in 1989 there were nearly 180,000 cases in all regions in Ghana but the case load had since reduced by about 98 per cent to 3,981 at the end of 2005. During 2006, the case load remained stagnant at 4,130 with 2005 and 2006 recording the lowest cases ever.

Mr Gilbert Dery, Northern Regional Programme Coordinator of the Guinea Worm Eradication Programme, said achieving success in the eradication of the disease in mostly the Northern regions had become a problem due to the remote, small and scattered communities in that part of the country and also poverty and ignorance.

He said interventions like the free distribution of cloth filters had been embarked upon in communities to ensure that members filtered their drinking water. 22 Jan. 07