Wa, March 5, GNA - Health institutions in the Upper West Region recorded a drastic fall in deaths among children under the age of five years through malaria from 135 in 2005 to 97 last year while deaths from pregnant mothers fell from three to two during the same period. Dr Daniel Yayemain, Deputy Regional Director of Health Services, who made this known through statistics made available to the Ghana News Agency at Wa attributed this positive development to numerous interventions that had been put in place to control the disease. Prominent among the interventions was increased access to mosquito nets made available by the UNICEF.

He said malaria cases reported at the out-patients units of the various health facilities in the Region dropped from 117,685 cases in 2004 to 110,092 and 107,442 in 2005 and 2006 respectively. Out of the cases among children under five years were 79,134 in 2004 and 85,665 in 2005 and fell steeply to 43,351 cases last year. Malaria cases among pregnant mothers were 666 in 2004 and increased to 729 in 2005. Last year it went down to 360 cases with total deaths from malaria among all age groups being 145 in 2006 as against 184 in the previous year.

Total guinea worm cases declined from 333 to 93 with the Wa East District remaining the most endemic in the Region while, two new cases believed to be imported, emerged in the Sissala West District. On the National Health Insurance Scheme, the Regional Health Director said 153,108 persons, representing 24 per cent of the total population of the Region were covered.

Out of the number, 79,616 were people under 18 years who did not have to pay any premium, 22,966 were people between the ages of 19 and 69. SSNIT contributors totalled 9,186, while 4,593 and 15,311 formed the indigenous and people over 70 years segment of the population.