By Nicholas Osei-Wusu
The Obuasi East District Assembly in Ashanti has commended AngloGold Ashanti Malaria Control Limited, AGAMAL for its enormous contribution to the fight against malaria within the Obuasi geographical enclave, in particular, and Ghana at large over the years.
The District Chief Executive, Madam Faustina Amissah, told Correspondent Nicholas Osei-Wusu in an interview, that AGAMAL’s Indoor Residual Spraying intervention has immensely contributed to the significant reduction in not only malaria cases at hospitals, but also the consistent Zero cases of both under five and maternal mortality in the district in the past few years and appealed with the management to sustain the initiative.
The DCE singled out the Indoor Residual Spraying by AGAMAL as a major contributor to the significant reduction in case load of malaria at hospitals in the area saying that for some time now, paediatric and women admission wards have heavily decongested due to the reduced malaria cases.
“It has had a great impact because before the intervention of the malaria control, if you go to children’s Wards at the Hospitals, always the beds are full. But with the inception of the malaria control programme, though children fall sick, but few of them test positive to malaria. They are helping the health directorate to protect life so we will say we appreciate it. We are very much happy and we will pray that they will continue to support the health directorate to fight malaria”, she explained.
Madam Amissah said the Obuasi East District Assembly, in complementing the role of AGAMAL to achieve the desired results, has also been organizing regular communal clean-up exercises within its jurisdiction to destroy breeding places of mosquitoes.
She appealed to AGAMAL to sustain its interventions but pleaded that the frequency of the spraying be increased.
The DCE recounted, “Initially they were spraying, I think, every three months. But of late, I think they spray once a year which I feel that, if they could go back and do it, at least, twice or thrice a year, I think it would be good.”
In her view, with all hands on deck and full deployment of the appropriate interventions, the Zero Malaria agenda is possible and advised residents in the district to also do their bit in fighting the disease burden.
The AngloGold Ashanti Malaria Control Limited, AGAMAL, was set up in 2006 as an independent organization in response to the high cost of malaria on the Obuasi mine through regular employee absenteeism and medical bills.
In living up to its mandate of controlling the high burden of the disease, AGAMAL has been deploying vector control as its key intervention focusing on Indoor Residual Spraying by which private homes and open public spaces identified to be breeding spots for mosquitoes are targeted periodically with scientifically approved chemicals, using spraying gangs of local youth.
The initiative covers the Obuasi Municipality and Obuasi East district in Ashanti, the Upper West region and selected districts in the Upper East region.
The Director of AGAMAL, Mr. Samuel Asiedu, revealed to GBC that, the parent organization, AngloGold Ashanti, has been investing about one million Dollars in the intervention every year to ensure malaria is subdued.
Mr. Asiedu disclosed that, the intervention is able to effectively protect about one point-three million people within the beneficiary districts against the disease every year.
He said AGAMAL is on the verge of persuading other private organizations to also invest in the national agenda to eliminate malaria from Ghana and assured that AGAMAL is committed to sustaining its interventions, and thanked the Global Fund for committing additional financial support to the initiative.
