Saltpond (CR), Sept 30, GNA - The government spends 850 billion cedis on the management of malaria in the country annually. Miss Mavis Narh, Mfantseman District Public Health Nurse has said. Speaking at a workshop on malaria for some teachers in the District at Saltpond, she urged Ghanaians to adopt preventive measures to avoid the disease.

She recommended the use of Insecticide Treated Net (ITN) and Mosquito expellants to protect people from the bites of the insect. Miss Narh urged teachers to educate the people on good environmental sanitation and said possible breeding grounds of the insect should be destroyed.

The workshop was organised by the Mfantseman Area Development Programme (ADP) of the World Vision, Ghana, to identify factors preventing people from changing their attitude towards the management and prevention of certain diseases including Malaria, HIV/AIDS and Diarrhoea.

Mrs Evelyn Nisiah, Area Manager of the programme, pointed out that the non-compliance to the dosage for anti-malaria drugs made the treatment of malaria difficult.

She stated that the World Health Organisation (WHO) had decided to withdraw chloroquine as the frontline medicine for the treatment of malaria because the parasites had developed resistance to it as a result of the non-compliance of the dosage.

Mrs Nsiah urged the participants to come out with the reasons for the habit and how to change it.

Miss Helena Tibiru a Disease Control Officer took the participants through diarrhoea management before referring patients to hospital. She stressed the need for taking good care of food and drinking water.

Mrs Aimee Akotey, Programme Officer of World Vision, advised the participants to ensure that people living with HIV/AIDS were not treated as outcasts.

Mr Reemans Osei Bonsu, District School Health Education Programme Officer, cautioned against the use of the same cleaning material by casual partners after sex since that rendered the use of condoms useless.