Manso-Ayirebikrom (Ash), Sept 9, GNA - Prayer houses and fetish shrines where most people troop to find cure for their 'spiritual ailments' paradoxically are also the place where people get infected with tuberculosis (TB) and other diseases, Dr Joseph Obeng-Baah of the Chest Department of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), has said. He said conditions at prayer houses and shrines such as poor hygiene, overcrowding make people susceptible to infection.

Dr Obeng-Baah was speaking on tuberculosis at a day's seminar organised by the KATH branch of the Healthcare Fellowship International, non-governmental organisation.

He said the big hospitals could also be possible places to contract diseases but the risk at the hospitals is reduced since the chance of an infected person spreading diseases is minimised soon after treatment starts.

Besides, he said, patients already receiving treatment or even those just diagnosed are taught the basic hygiene of spitting into a clean covered container to be disposed of in a hygienic way and muffling the mouth with a clean handkerchief in the event of coughing and sneezing.

Dr Obeng-Baah called on the general public who might have been coughing for more than two weeks to report to any nearby health facility for investigations.

Miss Esther Mensah, Programmes Director for the Fellowship, which comprised Christian doctors, nurses and other health professionals, said the fellowship aims to give a holistic approach to the sick by not only treating their diseases but attending to their spiritual and physical needs as well.