Editorial: Let Us Hurry With Assistance!

The government, through the Ghana Health Service (GHS), says that it is rushing to deliver vaccines to the certain parts of the Upper West Region. This follows the outbreak of a strange form of the deadly cerebrospinal meningitis (CSM), which has affected some fifty-two people and has so far killed seventeen in Jirapa District alone. It has been reported that the situation has overwhelmed health workers in the region and at the national secretariat of the Ghana Health Service due to the fact that the bacterium causing the current outbreak is new, the W135, which is being seen in Ghana for the first time. The outbreak was first reported six weeks ago with few complaints, but since then it has burgeoned, infecting dozens of people and killing at least seventeen. We at the Daily Searchlight are appalled that a disease with such deadly morbidity rate has been allowed to rage virtually unchecked in the borders of this country! It is a well-known fact that this nation has reporting systems starting from the district level to the regional level the national level. That being so, we wonder how it became possible for this disease to be allowed to rage virtually unchecked within our borders to the extent of killing seventeen people before being reported to warrant national response! This is clearly unacceptable! It is in this wise that we call on government to immediately ensure that it sends all the necessary help required to the affected region to contain this disease. Again, as an infectious disease we must do all that we can to ensure that it does not spread beyond its current bounds, to ensure that more people are not killed by it!