Efforts to check spread of three pandemics

Page 31 (lead) September 17/2008

Story: Charles Benoni Okine

VICE-President Alhaji Aliu Mahama has called for a sustained momentum in the fight against the three most deadly diseases — HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
That, he said, would help the country achieve the target on health set under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.
The Vice-president, who made the call when he opened the first Friends Africa/Africaso African Grassroot NGO capacity building seminar in Accra, said: “We need to significantly scale up the responses to the challenges posed by the three pandemics”.
The seminar is being attended by participants from more than 20 countries and they will, among other things, develop strategies on how to combat the spread of the three diseases which are gradually destroying the social and human resource bases of Africa and the rest of the world.
Alhaji Mahama said HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria kill six million people each year or 16,000 people a day.
The three diseases had hit Africa the hardest with close to 70 per cent of worldwide infections, with more than 75 per cent of all AIDS-related deaths in 2007 taking place in sub-Saharan Africa.
“In addition, about 60 per cent of the cases of malaria worldwide and more than 80 per cent of malaria deaths also occurred in sub-Saharan Africa”, he added.
Alhaji Mahama said the region also accounted for 30 per cent of new cases of tuberculosis worldwide, adding that the three diseases were devastating Africa’s human resource and thereby taking a heavy toll on the continent’s most vulnerable people.
He added that in Ghana, the President had personally committed himself to fighting the three killer diseases and urged other African leaders to follow suit.
Alhaji Mahama also used the occasion to challenge Africa’s business community to engage in the business of saving lives by getting involved in the fight through the use of their resources to support healthier bodies and minds, the most important factors of production.
Alhaji Mahama pointed out that grass-roots development is the bedrock of national development and that it is the summation of small successful ventures that feed into the national success story.
“This is why there is increasing interest by the Global Fund and other donors to work directly with actual implementers”, he added.
Alhaji Mahama said to do this successfully, however, “there is the need to increase local retentive capacity, ownership, as well as plan for sustainability.”
The Vice-president said in Africa, as elsewhere, every person’s future counted and everyone could play a part by being focused and determined.
Professor Sakyi Awuku Amoa, Chairman of the Ghana AIDS Commission, for his part, called for managerial leadership for the NGOs to enable them to live up to expectation as far as the challenges of the three diseases were concerned, adding that the effects of HIV/AIDS on society were multi-dimensional, affecting development. Therefore, those engaged in supporting the fight should be well equipped to manage the disease effectively.
Dr Akudo Anyanwu Ikemba, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Friends Africa, said based on the response to the seminar and the interest shown by many, it would be an annual event to throw more light on the impact of the three diseases and the need to deal effectively with the pandemic on the continent.