Fifteen people have died of rabies in the Upper West Region in two years. Nine of the deaths were recorded in 2015.
The 15 deaths were the only reported cases in the region and health officials said none of the victims survived.
The regional health directorate is, therefore, seeking collaboration with stakeholders to curb the spread of the disease in the region.
The acting Regional Director of Health Services for Upper West, Dr Winfred Ofosu, made this known when he addressed participants in the Upper West Regional Health Service Performance Review Conference in Wa. “Human rabies remains a threat to residents of the region. We cannot continue to allow this to happen. We need collaborative effort to ensure all rabid animals are vaccinated to curb increasing deaths from this preventable fatal disease,” he said.
Threat to life
Human rabies and its threat to life had gone almost unnoticed when other health conditions, particularly meningitis, (both pneumococcal and cerebrospinal), threatened life across the country.
Meningitis has so far claimed nine lives in the region this year out of the 140 suspected cases.
Dr Ofosu said 17 out of 203 suspected cases died of meningitis resulted in death in the region in 2015, while there were 19 deaths out of the 192 suspected cases in 2014.
He also said the deadly pneumococcal meningitis had been in the region before it was detected in large numbers in the Brong Ahafo Region last year, explaining that they had largely been isolated cases.
Containing Ebola, others
The Regional Minister, Alhaji Amin Amidu Sulemani, said the region had made preparations to contain any case of Ebola, and expressed the hope that the review conference would find ways to overcome some of the common diseases that had recently surfaced.
While announcing increases in facilities such as Community-based Health Planning Services (CHPS) zones from 148 in 2014 to 202 in 2015, and CHPS compounds from 164 in 2014 to 194 in 2015, Alhaji Sulemani said the region was bent on enforcing a policy to retain 100 per cent of health professionals trained in the region.
He said the number of midwives in the region increased from 113 in 2014 to 219 in 2015, while physician assistants also increased from 37 in 2014 to 43 in 2015.
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