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Self-treating children of malaria is dangerous – Dr Amo to parents

A Clinical Pharmacologist and a Medical Officer at the KNUST hospital in Kumasi, Dr Richmond Amo, is cautioning parents and caregivers to refrain from self-treating their children of malaria or suspected malaria cases, as it could lead to their early deaths.

He said children are the most vulnerable group of people who can easily die from malaria infections, hence the need for a professional health officer to treat them for malaria.

Sadly, he noted, many parents only send their children to health facilities for malaria treatment only when they (parents) had tried their own treatment and failed.

Speaking in an interview with Graphic Online on the dangers associated with malaria self-medication and how to avoid malaria mortalities in the country, particularly in children, Dr Amo, noted with concern that one disease that people are quick to go for self-medication in the country was malaria.

For him, because malaria is a common disease in the country, people over time have turned themselves into experts, using all sort of medicines to treat the disease.

Malaria treatment

He explained that in treating malaria, especially in children, the child’s weight is one of the major determinants of the dosage of drug to be given and so people cannot just buy any anti-malaria drugs that someone used for his or her child because it worked for that person on their own children.

“You cannot use somebody’s case to give the same drug and dose to your child,” Dr Amo noted, pointing out that wrong dosage, whether high or low, will have an adverse health effects on one’s child.

For him, pediatric patients’ drugs are given based on their weight, and also cautioning that in the case of expectant mothers, not every anti-malaria drugs could be administered, especially when they are in their first trimester.

He explained that in treating malaria cases, health practitioners consider the number of parasites in the patient’s system in order to guide the mode of drug administration; whether to use oral administration, injection, or intravenous medications.

For Dr Amo, it is not right for people to just walk to pharmacy shops to buy their own anti-malaria drugs without knowing whether such drugs are good for them or not.

Malaria

Malaria still remains a major public health problem in Ghana. This is because Ghana is still part of the 15 high burdened malaria countries in the world, accounting for four per cent of the global cases and seven per cent of all malaria cases in West Africa.

The disease is particularly fatal among children under five years. For instance, statistics by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) indicates that Ghana in 2016 recorded a total of 590 malaria deaths among children under five years.

Similarly, malaria, according to the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP), accounted for about 42.8 per cent of Outpatient Department cases and 22.2 per cent of inpatients cases and 1.1 per cent of inpatients death in the country in 2019. Ghana also recorded 333 malaria deaths in the same year (2019).

The World Health Organisation estimates that in Ghana, about 20 percent of all children have malaria parasites in their blood.

Considering the dangers associated with malaria particularly in children, the World Health Organisation (WHO) in collaboration with the Ghana Health Service (GHS) launched the RST, S malaria vaccine, a complementary malaria control tool in Ghana in April 2019, to help protect children under five against malaria infections. So far, about 47 districts in Ghana are piloting the implementation of the vaccine.

Dr Amo said that although self-medication in itself is a dangerous practice, the practice is more deadly in children, as it could easily lead to their death faster than adults.

He said although malaria is a common disease, if left untreated, could become dire which in most cases lead to death, stressing that many people due to self-medication, most times, report malaria cases at health facilities in their late stages, a situation he noted, only puts the life of the patient in danger.

Impeding factors

Even though Ghana and other Sub-Saharan nations in Africa are making efforts in fighting malaria, the practice of self-medication, particularly in children, could impede these efforts. This is because Ghana is still not out of the malaria endemic countries.

For Dr Amo, who is a part-time Lecturer at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Studies at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), many people including children have met their untimely death due to self-medication.

He explained, for instance, that when it comes to malaria treatment, “anti-malaria drugs are not just administered to people on the basis that they have malaria but other clinical issues specific to the patient are considered before deciding on a particular type of anti-malarial drug to be given.”

He said “administering wrong anti-malaria drugs to a patient without properly identifying their clinical history could lead to other compilations and in worse situations, death.”

It is a said that about 3.2 billion people, almost half of the world’s population, are at risk of malaria infections and young children and pregnant women are the most vulnerable people to the disease. Symptoms associated with malaria included headache, chills, fever, nausea and vomiting.

For Dr Amo, because malaria is a common disease in Ghana, people do not see it as a dangerous disease that could result in major clinical complications.

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