Volunteers undergo training in Ebola, cholera prevention
Six hundred people from 60 communities across the Northern, Upper East and West regions have been trained as volunteers to make people in the three regions aware of the Ebola and cholera disease.
Advertisement
The volunteers are also to educate residents on the causes and prevention of the diseases and on ways to detect suspected cases of the Ebola disease.
The training and sensitisation programme was organised by the Institute for Social Research and Development (ISRAD), a non-governmental organisation, in support of the National Preparedness and Response Plan for the prevention and containment of Ebola.
Goal of project
Speaking at the workshop in Tamale, the Communications Manager of ISRAD, Mr Michael Nandomah Mensah, said the goal of the project was to get at least 70 per cent of “at risk groups” in Ghana to become knowledgeable in the modes of transmission, signs and symptoms of Ebola and cholera, in addition to ways of preventing them.
He said at the end of the project, which is expected to last for about six months, about 10 million Ghanaians were expected to have gained knowledge in both the cholera and Ebola diseases.
Mr Mensah said the volunteers has been equipped to undertake community level activities, including going from house-to-house and organising groups across the three northern regions.
"We envisage a change in behaviours of community members by way of doing away with unhealthy lifestyles and adopting better ones," he said.
Participants
The Deputy Director for Public Health in Tamale, Mrs Faustina Dery, lauded ISRAD for its contribution to health care in the country and encouraged the participants to take the training seriously in order to make the project a success.
She said cholera was a disease which was easily preventable, only if people practised proper personal hygiene.