For the past two years, Denzel Asante, a first-year student of Mpraeso Secondary School, who resides in Darkuman-Accra, has been battling a head tumor but thanks to Vodafone’s Healthline support initiative, he can look forward to a brighter life.

Narrating his story, Denzel indicated that the incident happened during his Junior High School time at New Star Junior High School when a teacher smashed his head severally with a cane for failure to answer a question correctly in class.

He indicated however that before the incident between him and the teacher, he was feeling a slight headache which got serious afterwards and he was permitted to go home for medication, which became the beginning of the discovery that he has developed a head tumor that has burst.

According to the mother, he was given some pain killers (paracetamol) when he returned home from school on that fateful day with the head issue but the headache continued for days and he was sent to Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital for treatment but after weeks of treatment the right eye swelled and so her mother was asked to make payment for a scan.

Due to financial challenges, Denzel’s mother, who was already unable to purchase prescribed drugs on time, took a longer time to finance the scan and when results came, it showed that a tumor had developed, subsequently burst and clotted in the head.

Denzel was admitted at the Korle-Bu and the medication required for his treatment cost GH¢700 per day which became difficult for the family to handle. It came to a point where they needed to perform surgery on the boy or would develop one of two additional health complications; either mental issues or infection in the head.

Despite the surgery, which was supported by family and friends, an infection of the skull bone has developed as a result of the complications that occurred during the delay in identifying the tumor.

Denzel’s mother indicated that she was watching television in a friend’s room when the Vodafone Healthline programme was telecasted and she decided to also give it a try by sending her documents to their office and thankfully they came to the rescue of brilliant Denzel who was then in school but puts on a helmet to class always.

Denzel, his mother and grandmother expressed their heartfelt gratitude to Vodafone Ghana Limited for their kind gesture in supporting to rescue him at the right time as the family was incapable of raising the amount required for the surgery and other medications required.

In the 11th episode of the 9th season, Dr Akosua Twum Barima, Resident Periodontology at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) educated the public on bad breath or halitosis. She explained that the condition can be classified into physiological or pathological, adding that the physiological one is related to the food that one eats like garlic, onions, fish egg among others.

“Then we have the pathological ones, those ones are caused by diseases that are either from the mouth or any other organ of the body; mostly ear, nose, throat, liver and upper respiratory system. The whole concept of halitosis is because we have a lot of bacteria in our mouth and some of these bacteria produces by-products that contain Sulphur content responsible for the bad breath,” she said.

She advised the public to adhere to regular brushing of teeth to clear food particles that settle in between the teeth. She added that the tongue is very much involved in the cause of halitosis and therefore individuals should also give more attention to brushing the tongue thoroughly as it harbours most of these bacteria at its back.

“Individuals should endeavour to give themselves assessment by using a spoon to scrub the back of their tongue and smell the spoon after five seconds to know if they have bad breath or cover the mouth with the hand and breath into it and smell the air coming out to know if it has a smell,” she concluded.