The Ghana Health Service says it is maintaining surveillance to identify the actual pathogen causing the meningitis disease outbreak in the Upper West Region following the rise in death toll from 8 to 10.
The Director of Public Health at the Ghana Health Service Dr. Franklyn Asiedu Bekoe said the focus is to minimize the number of cases.
Meningitis is endemic in Ghana, as the country falls within the meningitis belt though concentration is mostly in the three northern regions, especially the Upper West Region. In 2020, the Region recorded 44 deaths out of over 300 suspected cases.
The death toll of the disease in the Region has risen from eight last month to ten as of March 19, 2024, while the number of suspected cases has also risen from 81 to 110 suspected cases. The general public is entreated to avoid self-medication and stop assuming every fever is malaria.
Dr Franklyn Asiedu- Bekoe said recent cases are more of stress pneumonia with the actual bacteria yet to be discovered.
Intense Harmattan: GHS on high alert for cerebrospinal meningitis disease outbreak in the country
‘‘We are trying to pick it based on case by case and the system has picked over 110 suspected cases. Some have been confirmed by labs and there are 10 deaths recorded over the period from November to March. In 2020, we had an outbreak in Upper West Region that also had a similar effect, but this one is on a minimal scale.
We are looking at seeing how minimal the numbers are and just a few days ago, the Region called an emergency regional committee meeting where a number of factors have been put in place. You know a few months ago we issued an alert. The alert was not about the Upper West, it was across the country that fevers should be managed outside malaria, and it could go beyond meningitis so people should visit health facilities and stop self- medication.
So those are the things that we are doing trying to maintain our surveillance looking for the pathogen which is causing the disease or cases. If it’s a meningitis and its vaccine-prone, then we will need to get them vaccines but for what we are having is not the vaccine prone cases,’’ he explained.
Meningitis usually occurs between November and April when maximum temperature is expected to be high and this year, the temperature has been exceptionally high as a result of climate change.
It is an infection and inflammation of the meninges, which are the membranes that cover the spinal cord and the brain. It can be caused by many different germs, including bacteria, fungi, and viruses.
The mortality rate of meningitis has been estimated to range from 36% to 50% in Ghana.
Sarah Apenkroh 3news.com