The Participatory Action for Rural Development Alternatives (PARDA) in collaboration with Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) has presented Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to 20 Community Health Planning Services, popularly known as CHPS compounds, in eight districts and municipalities of the Upper East Region.
The items included 80 personal protective equipment, 20 temperature guns, 30 veronica buckets, 400 hand sanitizers, 60 gallons of liquid soap and 20 handheld public address systems.
The initiative was to complement the government’s efforts in the fight against COVID-19 in the region.
Speaking to Citi News at a presentation to the Ghana Health Service in Bolgatanga, Director of PARDA, Dr. Michael Wombeogo said, the novel coronavirus was not a respecter of person hence their support to tackle its spread.
“PARDA is supporting the COVID-19 fight in two ways. One way is mobilizing logistics such as PPE to the Ghana Health Service to be distributed to our target communities to be used as part of the national prescribed protocols. The second part entails sensitization and education. PARDA is going to train some selected few within all our target communities to go out to the sections of each community to educate them on the pandemic and the only way we can be able to achieve some minimal fight over this disease is to educate our people to understand its dynamics”.
Dr. Wombeogo bemoaned the low public sensitization of COVID-19 awareness and prevention by the state, adding that, the government should decentralize public education on COVID-19 to the community level as the surest way to end the virus.
“We are all aware that, if you go to town as if there is nothing happening about COVID-19 as if we do not care about COVID-19 but I assure you, this is the only disease that has to cease everybody’s breath. The rich and the poor have become levelled, nobody is travelling outside the country to seek for treatment. The disease is a killer and the only way we can stop it is through education.”
The beneficiary communities are; Namoaligo, Kptai, Gbani and Gorogo in the Talensi District, Gane-Songe, Kontintabig and Nyobagre in the Nabdam District, Sapeliga, Tarikom, Kopela and Tanga in the Bawku West District and Zuarungu in the Bolga East District.
The rest are; Sumbrumgu, and Kunkua in the Bolgatanaga Municipal, Baribari and Asikri in the Bawku Municipality and Gia, Pindaa, Punyoro and Naaga in the Kassena-Nanakan Municipality.
Receiving the items on behalf of the GHS, Deputy Director of Public Health, Dr. Josephat Nya Zaghl commended PARDA for their timely intervention but reiterated that, stigma remains a major hindrance to COVID-19 fight that must be tackled head-on if the country is bent on reducing the spread of the virus.
“One issue that we have to look it as a region has to do with the stigma and we can only fight stigma when you provide adequate information, people know about the disease and know how to prevent it and we can all play our little role to eliminate stigma in our communities.”
The region received laboratory feedback of 1,419 results out of 1,501 suspected COVID-19 cases of which 1,403 tested negative.
26 were confirmed positive of which 20 have been treated at the Bolgatanga COVID-19 treatment centre and discharged.
Four are under self-quarantine awaiting their second repeat test and if it comes negative, they would have also fully recovered from the virus.
Meanwhile, two of the suspected cases passed on before their test results were made available.