PZ Cussions Ghana Limited in partnership with Ghana Medical Association and Goodluck Cleaning Services has organized a health education programme for the people of Agona Swedru in the Central Region.

The programme was to sensitize the community on the need to practice personal hygiene and the dangers associated with poor sanitation in the country.

Ms Gladys S.Azure, Brands Manager Surface Care of PZ Cussions Ghana Limited said the gesture was part of the company’s corporate social responsibility to reach out to the community by offering free medical screening in the vicinity.

She said as part of the programme, it also organized a cleanup exercise in the main township with the help of other organisations and groups including Good luck Cleaning Services in Swedru, Zoom Lion, students from some selected second cycle institutions and keep fit clubs.

Ms Azure said as the harmattan season approached, there was little that could be done to change the phenomenon where germs, parasites, bacteria, and diseases carried by dust settled everywhere.

She said her outfit started the outreach programme in June 2012 and had been to communities in Dansoma, Darkuman and Aburi in the Eastern Region, hoping to cover the entire country as well as make it an annual programme.

She said Camel Antiseptic, a leading brand of PZ Cussions Ghana endorsed by the GMA, was committed to providing maximum protection from germs through its products and promoting quality preventive health care. "Camel antiseptic contains di-chloro-meta-xyleno which kills 99.9 per cent of germs and comes in the form of liquids and soaps", Ms Azure said.

Dr Paul Dsane of the Department of Medicine at Korle-Bu Hospital said the World Health Organization estimated that there were between 350 and 500 million cases of acute malaria each year, causing at least one million deaths mainly of children under five years of age living in sub-Saharan Africa.

Dr Dsane said children who survived may have learning difficulties, while pregnant women were particularly vulnerable, and may develop maternal anemia and miscarry.

He said Malaria was a serious tropical disease affecting people in Africa, South and Central America, parts of the Middle East and Asia, and was transmitted by the bite of the female anopheles mosquito that had been infected with a malaria parasite.

Dr Dsane said Malaria was sometimes misdiagnosed as influenza because of the symptoms of fever, headache and generalized aches and pains, vomiting, diarrhoea and abdominal cramps.

He urge all to ensure personal hygiene and to use spray containing permethrin on clothing, which should be sprayed both inside and outside for 30-60 seconds and allowed to dry for two to four hours before being worn.

They should also sleep under a net impregnated with permethrin and use coils and mats impregnated with insecticide in closed rooms to repel the mosquitoes