Fiapre (B/A), Aug. 3, GNA - Newmont Ghana Gold Limited (NGGL), the Ahafo project, has instituted a programme to help reduce child morbidity and mortality in Tano North and Asutifi Districts in Brong-Ahafo Region. The company is to spend 110,000 US dollars in addition to other interventions, to execute initiative named the Community Integrated Management Childhood Illnesses (C-IMCI) programme.

The programme to build capacities of health professionals would focus on the control of malaria, diarrhea, acute respiratory infections, measles and other preventable diseases for children and the unborn. Mr Joseph Danso, Community Development Superintendent of NGGL announced this at the launch of the programme under the theme: "Improving the health of our communities through partnership" at Fiapre, near Sunyani on Monday.

The launch coincided with the opening of a five-day training of trainers workshop attended by 16 participants drawn from the beneficiary communities to help implement the programme. The Ghana Health Service and the Department Community Health of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) would collaborate and provide technical assistance during the programme implementation.

Mr Danso explained that the C-IMCI demonstrated the company's commitment to contribute to the health needs of the communities in which it operated. He said training would be held for 25 service providers and 288 community-based health workers from the districts to assist with the implementation.

Dr Emmanuel Tenkorang, Deputy Director of Public Health at the Regional Hospital in Sunyani also announced that 144 out of 1,000 live births die in the region every year.

He stressed that reducing child mortality and morbidity as well as other vaccine preventable diseases was a collective responsibility for both the health sector and the general public. Dr Tenkorang appealed to the general public especially nursing mothers to keep their surroundings clean at all times to avoid the outbreak of communicable diseases.

Dr Easmon Otupiri, Head of the department of community health at KNUST educated the participants on malaria control, child nutrition and community-based disease surveillance. 3 Aug. 09