The Ghana Health Service (GHS), has outlined a number of strategies as part of measures to contain the spread of the Marburg Disease in the country.
So far, three cases have been recorded with one case fully confirmed by the Institut Pasteur in Dakar Senegal with the result of the other two still inconclusive.
The raft of measures include, dissemination of the World Health Organisation’s preliminary guidelines on case management, collaboration with the Veterinary Services Department to conduct assessment in the affected areas, contact tracing and enhanced education in schools and communities.
Speaking at the Sunday edition of the Minister’s Briefing organised by the Ministry of Information in Accra yesterday, the Director-General of the GHS, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye said Ghana was currently faced with three public health emergencies.
These he said were the COVID-19 pandemic, the Marburg Virus disease and the Monkeypox disease.
He explained that the first suspected case of viral hemorrhagic fever was detected in the country on July 7 and was subsequently confirmed as Marburg by the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research.
He said the service had commenced the implementation of several interventions with focus on Ashanti, Savannah and Western regions.
He said a commutative list of 118 contacts had been conducted with 50 from the Ashanti Region, 48 from the Savannah and 20 from the Western Region.
Dr Kuma-Aboagye explained that 19 of the contacts traced so far were Health workers with the remaining 99 being close family members or household and community contacts.
He said the Marburg Disease was a viral hemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola and had a fatality rate of about 90 per cent.
Touching on the Monkeypox disease, he said 34 persons had contracted the diseases with about 50 per cent of the cases in Accra.
He explained that even though there was a high risk of spreading, it had lower fatality ratio.
The Director-General said with the WHO declaring Monkeypox as a global health emergency, the country was taking all the necessary steps to limit its spread in the country.
BY CLIFF EKUFUL
