By Seraphine Nyuiemedi
A pharmaceutical company, Bliss GVS Pharma Ghana Limited, has donated anti-malaria drugs worth ¢100,000 to the Ho Teaching Hospital in the Volta Region to help manage and treat malaria cases at the facility.
Speaking at a brief ceremony to hand over the products to the hospital, a pharmacist and the medical representative of a subsidiary company of Bliss GVS Pharma Ghana Limited, Kwame Kumi-Afoakwa, said malaria remains one of the topmost causes of morbidity and mortality in Ghana and needs to be addressed.
He said the donation forms part of the company’s annual campaign, introduced over the years to eradicate malaria in the country.
The items include clamoxin, Lonart, Gsunate, and p-alaxin, among others. Mr. Kumi-Afoakwa said the company donated similar items to six health facilities in the country last year but has increased the number to nine this year.
He said Bliss GVS Pharma will continue to partner with the government and the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana to help fight malaria. He gave the assurance that the company will do its best to provide its clients with quality and effective products at moderate prices.
“Malaria has been a major challenge when we look at our regions, especially the African continent and our country, Ghana, precisely. In a bid to make Africa and Ghana a malaria-free continent, we have partnered with the government of Ghana and the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana to help give solutions to our patients as and when the need might come up to tackle malaria. We will continually put in our best and give very good quality, effective, and moderately priced anti-malaria drugs to the public,” he said.
A pharmacist at the Ho Teaching Hospital, Wisdom Delali Adzaku, who received the items on behalf of management, noted that malaria continues to be among the cases recorded daily at the hospital, especially in children under five. He expressed management’s gratitude to Bliss GVS Pharma for the kind gesture, saying it will go a long way to complement the hospital’s existing malaria drugs.
“From our outpatient and inpatient records, malaria continues to feature prominently as one of the top 10 disease conditions. It greatly affects children under-five and we can’t manage it without drugs, so this gesture is going to strengthen the availability of drugs in the hospital, and it will make the management of malaria very successful,” he said.
The Volta/Oti regional chairman of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana, Dr. Conrad Adjadeh, advised the public to practice personal hygiene and sleep under insecticide-treated nets, among others to prevent contracting the disease.
“Once they begin to see the symptoms and signs of malaria, the community pharmacies are opened they have the test kits where people can just walk in and have the test done, confirmed, and then the pharmacists available can now give them the right medicines to manage their condition. They should sleep under insecticide treated mosquito nets, they should wear very long clothing’s that will cover their body when their outdoor during the night to prevent the mosquitoes from biting them, and then take care of their environment and also practice personal hygiene,” he said.
The donation coincided with World Malaria Day.
