Accra, Feb.4, GNA - President John Agyekum Kufuor on Wednesday stressed the need for stakeholders to intensify the education on eradication of Guinea-worm disease in Ghana.

"We are not doing well. We need to step up education and more education on the culture of the people in endemic areas", he said.

President Kufuor made the call when Former US President Jimmy Carter accompanied by his wife Rosalyn and a high powered UNICEF, WHO and Ghana Government delegation of partners in a world-wide coalition against the guinea worm disease, paid a courtesy call on him at the Castle, Osu. The entourage is on a five-day, three-nation, West African tour to call international attention to the need to eliminate the last one per cent of guinea worm disease in the world.

The travel on behalf of The Carter Centre would take President Carter and his wife to Togo and Mali.

President Kufuor expressed appreciation to the Centre for the great advocacy role it had played to eradicate the disease, adding, "Ghana feels you are very supportive".

He said the Government had made regular budgetary allocation towards eradicating the disease and said about two billion cedis had been allocated.

In addition, President Kufuor said 1.5 million dollars from the HIPC Initiative and another 1.5 million dollars from international organisations had been provided to the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Works and Housing to undertake programmes towards the eradication of the disease.

He said under the programme, it was estimated that about 100 hand-dug wells would be constructed in 500 communities within the next five years.

President Carter said the project initiated by the Centre began about 18 years ago targeting 12 countries in Africa.

He said the disease had been contained in seven out of the 12 countries leaving five of them with about 50 per cent of coverage.

President Carter said it was easy to eradicate the disease because it affected only human beings, therefore, with intensified education it could be eradicated.

He said it was a damaging disease economically when it affected children of school going age and farmers.

President Carter, Chairman of The Carter Centre and 2002 Nobel Laureate, said education on the eradication of the disease should concentrate more on the use of filter cloth to filter water from infected streams.

During the day President Carter and his entourage visited the Northern Region to contribute his quota towards awareness creation in the fight and eradication of the disease in the Region, which has the highest prevalence rate in the country.

He also visited Jantong/Dashei Traditional Area, a guinea worm endemic community in the East Gonja District, about 24 kilometres from Tamale to interact with the community, as well as people living with the disease and to see how best they could be helped.

Jantong/Dashei has the highest incidence of guinea worm disease in the Northern Region and the Dashei community alone recorded 615 cases of the disease last year out of the total 1,281 reported cases in the East Gonja District.

The Center, UNICEF, and WHO are lead partners in a worldwide coalition that has helped countries to reduce the incidence of the disease by 99 per cent, from 3.5 million in 1986 to approximately 35,000.

Guinea worm disease is expected to be the first parasitic disease to be eradicated without vaccine or medication.

With 13 of the original 20 endemic countries free or nearly free of guinea worm, the disease remains only in West Africa and Sudan. Ghana is the most endemic guinea worm country in West Africa, second in the world only to Sudan, which has nearly 70 per cent of the remaining cases. Ghana accounted for about 25 per cent of the approximately 35,000 reported cases in 2003.