Intensify education on buruli ulcer
The target group for the education campaign has been schoolchildren who in turn educate their parents on the dangers associated with the continuous use of water from the river.
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At the Kojo Ashon Methodist School, a number of the pupils who have been affected by the disease said, health personnel had organised educational programmes to make them aware of the possible causes of the disease.
The schoolchildren, who act as agents of change, said when they went back home to educate their parents about the causes of the buruli ulcer disease, their parents often ignored them arguing that their ancestors had drunk the water since time immemorial but nothing happened to them.
Meanwhile, some of the children who have scars on their bodies as a result of being infected with the disease in the past said they had stopped fetching or drinking water from the river and had, therefore, not had any infection since.
Felix Otu, a 15-year-old Form One student of the Kojo Ashon Methodist school, said he used to fetch water from the river but ever since he got to know that he could get infected, he had stopped and now used water from the borehole.
Richard Lotsu, 14, who was also infected with the disease four years ago, said his family drank from the river but stopped after he was treated and educated on the disease.
There would be the need for more educational programmes for the older people in the communities to appreciate the need to use the water from the boreholes and not count the cost.
According to Dr Janet Pereko, a specialist surgeon at the Amasaman Hospital, even if a person had bruises or cuts on his or her body and went into the river, he or she could be infected with the disease.
She also advised all people in the villages to keep their communities clean because the virus thrived in dirty environments.
She added that NGOs which assisted communities with water and sanitation facilities and benevolent organisations should be brought on board to help dig additional boreholes for the communities so that they could have potable water to help curb the disease.
If the fight against buruli ulcer will be won, intensive education will have to be directed at all inhabitants in the villages about the causes of the disease.
If a number of citizens desist from drinking from the river and others in the communities see that they do not get infected with the disease, it is likely that many more will accept that buruli ulcer infection is not a curse or a spiritual spell.
Once the people know how the disease begins from the education programmes, it is likely that they will report at the health centres early for treatment instead of going to herbalists for herbs, or using cow dung, charcoal or pepper on the sores to worsen their condition.