By Prince J Musa in Kenema
The Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MOHS) in collaboration with Helen Keller International has on the 29th April 2020 conducted training for health surveyors on neglected tropical diseases at the environmental health office in Kenema. The exercise is to prepare the trainees for a survey on the level of prevalence of the elephantiasis disease in the district.
According to the Hellen Keller Director of Programmes Tropical Diseases, Mustapha Sonnie, the organization has been supporting MOHS over the years on neglected tropical diseases such as elephantiasis and that based on their interventions, progress has been made in that regard.
He spoke about some of the key things expected from the communities where they have distributed medicines for the disease in compliance with all due protocols and said the district recently passed the pre-transmission risk assessment survey which shows there is very good prevention rate.
He said they were going to test the children in the district to know the level of elephantiasis infection in the area which would enable them to decide on whether to continue administering of the medicines.
He said the survey is a national programme involving the District Health Management Team (DHMT) that will include holding of town hall engagements on ways of contracting elephantiasis and its symptoms. Sonnie revealed that over the years, those persons the anti-elephantiasis medicines reacted on have been referred to health authorities for proper observation and treatment where necessary.
Abdul Conteh a Monitoring and Evaluation Officer from the MOHS said that technical support has been provided to Helen Keller by the ministry to help eliminate the disease. He stated that the tests done have been able to ascertain whether there is active transmission of the parasite that causes elephantiasis in those communities. Conteh appealed to the trainees to be focused and efficient in carrying out the survey.
The focal person who is also the head of surveillance DHMT Kenema, Mohamed Koroma referred to the training as significant for the district especially in terms of their intervention over the years in mitigating the transmission chain.
He stated that initially many people were having different views over the distributions of the medicines but said massive community engagements with support from the local authorities have helped to create more awareness on the importance of distributing the drugs.
Koroma noted that the cooperation and acceptance of people in taking the medicines has been impressive and therefore assured the participants at the training to use the skills acquired in getting the fullest cooperation and trust of school authorities and the communities when conducting the survey.
He commended the leadership of Kenema DHMT especially Dr. Donald Samuel Grant for being supportive in ensuring that Helen Keller and the MOHS achieve their goal of providing quality health care service to the people.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online 04/05/21
