The Christian Children’s Fund of Canada (CCFC), a child centered organization, on Tuesday donated medicines to the Upper East Regional Health Directorate of the Ghana Health Service.

The donation of the drugs was to complement the Ghana Health Service's (GHS) efforts at confronting the health problems in the Region such as malnutrition, anemia in children and pregnant women, which are predominant in the three Northern Regions.

The medicines, which included one million tablets of Abendazole, (400mg), 480,000 tablets of ferrous sulphate, 750,000 tablets of Vitamin A and 2,000,000 tablets of multivitamins, would be distributed to health facilities in the region to cater for pregnant women and children.

The Country Director of CCFC, Mrs. Gifty Akosua said it was the first time CCFC had extended its outreach programmes to many more children beyond the Northern Region where it had been working for the past 16 years.

“This marks the beginning of a fruitful relationship with the Upper East Regional Directorate and the continuation of our collaborative engagement with the Ghana Health Service in general in reducing child and maternal mortality, which is one of the Millennium Development Goals”.

She indicated that for more than 50 years globally, and 16 years in Ghana, her outfit had been following the examples of Christ by serving the poor regardless of their faith, culture and ethnic background.

The mission of CCFC, she noted, was to pursue the interest of children by providing services and facilities to enhance education, healthcare, nutrition, water and sanitation needs of children and communities.

She noted that one of the major challenges facing Northern Region of Ghana was “poor water and poor sanitation conditions and stressed that the lack of access to safe drinking water for rural communities in the area remained a major cause of disease infection, especially diarrhea, other water-borne diseases and worm infection among children”.

She indicated that to help reduce the problem, CCFC had collaborated with other stakeholders to provide basic education needs and rain water harvesting facilities where access to portable water was a problem.

“CCFC also continues to intensify hygiene and sanitation education to promote healthy living practices among children, families and rural communities”.

Mr Lucio Dery, Deputy Regional Director in charge of Administration at the GHS, who received the items on behalf of the Regional Director Dr John Koku Awoonor-Williams, commended CCFC for the donation.

He indicated that although the Regional Directorate was embarking on several programmes aimed at curbing malnutrition and anemia among women and children, there was still the need for support and said the Directorate would ensure that the medicines were utilized properly to maximize benefits.