Aflao (V/R), June 5, GNA - An Environmental Health Worker has cautioned residents of Aflao and other communities in the Ketu District of the Volta Region to practice sound environmental hygiene to avoid the outbreak of epidemics in the area.

Mr Sonny Aloleve of the Ketu District Environmental Office, said with the onset of the rains, any disregard to clean hygiene had the propensity of triggering new cholera outbreaks, which he said, kept recurring every year with loss of many lives.

Mr Aloleve, who gave the warning in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, (GNA) at the weekend, also cautioned that poor sanitation related diseases such as typhoid and malaria could also breakout. Statistics at the Ketu District Health Directorate indicated that seven people died of diarrhoea, which is mainly a symptom of cholera, while 37 others died from malaria.

" Many of us are alarmed at the poor handling of cooked food for sale, waste management practices including human excreta due to lack of or poorly constructed toilet facilities in homes, mainly in Aflao", Mr Aloleve observed.

" We are more worried about the poor receptivity among the people of the pieces of health tips given them to help them change for the better".

Mr Aloleve noted that as one of the highly populated districts in the country and home to many visitors, special concern was needed for environmental hygiene was very crucial. He appealed to traditional rulers and other opinion leaders to assist in changing the attitude of the people to save themselves and others from communicable diseases.