Last Traces of Guinea Worm Disease Wiped Out in Ghana

The last traces of guinea worm infestation in the Northern Region have been wiped out following the successful eradication of the disease at Fufulso in the Central Gonja District.

DR Yasmin drinking potable water

The Central Gonja District experienced an upsurge of the disease last year with Fufulso accounting for 62 percent of all reported cases. However, following interventions geared towards eradicating the disease under UNICEF’s ‘Integrated Approach to Guinea Worm Eradication through Water, Sanitation and Hygiene’ (IWASH) Project, the disease was totally eradicated.

The IWASH project combined behavioral change education with the provision of potable water which saw the construction of over a hundred new water sources, including 93 boreholes and nine hand-dug wells while 108 bore holes were also rehabilitated.

Salisu Be-Awuribe drinking potable water

Under the project, 25 water schemes were completed with the result that the provision of potable water to guinea worm endemic communities increased from 45 percent in 2008 to 73 percent in 2009 and 79 percent in March this year. Almost 148,000 people in previously guinea worm endemic communities now have access to improved water sources.

More than 2000 Community Based Hygiene Volunteers have also received training on behavior change and are supporting hygiene behavior change at community level in beneficiary communities to bring about a permanent change in behavior to sustain the success of the project.

Under the sanitation aspect of the project, latrines have been constructed in 4,336 households with a usage rate of 87 percent while 58 communities have reached open defecation free status.     

During a visit to the Central Gonja District by Ambassador Claude Maeten, Head of the European Union (EU) Delegation to Ghana which saw the commissioning of three water projects, he  expressed surprise that there was no single guinea worm case in the district.,

 “I was here to see something but there is nothing to see because Ghana is totally free of guinea worm and it is a great achievement. UNICEF did very well with the money pumped into this area and Ghana deserves more support in this area”, the Ambassador said.

Dr Yasmin Ali Haque, UNICEF country representative, who was equally surprised at how all traces of the disease had been wiped out, asked “what happened in Central Gonja to make sure that the disease was contained?’ She also wanted to know whether it was possible to sustain such a feat without communities where the disease was previously endemic slipping back into old behavioral practices that brought about the disease in the first place.

Dr Yasmin said in spite of the success chalked by eradicating the disease, there is still a long way to go even though six months down the line there have been no cases. She said the eradication programme still needed about two years of work to ensure that while the disease is not that visible, people do not go back to old habits. Hence, the biggest challenge was how to sustain behavior change to sustain the eradication of the worm.

 Mr. Salisu Be- Awuribe, Central Gonja Chief Executive, attributed the success of the eradication exercise to the willingness of all partners such as the Carter Center, and the Ministry of Health to get themselves involved in the eradication exercise on the ground coupled with the sustained efforts of the volunteers who reached out to the communities by knocking on their doors, giving them the filters and guiding them to use the filters well. They shared ideas, addressed the issues on the ground and attended meetings regularly which also contributed to the success of the programme.

However, the greatest contributor to the success of the programme was the dispelling of old age believes that had been a big hindrance to behavioral change in the past. “The hitherto myth that guinea worm is not from water but from spiritual and other means has almost died out.” The District Chief Executive said.  

Mr. Be-Awuribe said in spite of the new water sources that have recently been constructed in the district under the IWASH project, water coverage in the district is just about 30 to 36 percent. Meanwhile, estimates on the amount of money required to provide potable water to all parts of the district in order to achieve 100 percent water coverage is 12 million US dollars.

“UNICEFS investments in Central Gonja alone is about half of this amount but has not yielded the required yields. The District is ready to partner any organsaition that comes with this kind of support. A lot has been done but the battle is not yet over”, he said.

He disclosed that the communities rely on animal husbandry for an income hence  are also concerned about getting water for their animals: “most communities will like to have dugouts rather than boreholes because they believe dugouts can serve a mufti purpose function such as providing water for animals, backyard gardens, and domestic activities” . Hence, he appealed to UNICEF and other water service providers to consider a technology that combines dugouts with the provision of potable water.

Mr. Be- Awuribe  admitted that due to the nature of the communities a sudden  pull out after the eradication exercise will spell doom since  people will go back to the old ways of doing things which would undermine  all achievements hence the need to put in place checks and balances to sustain behavioral change.

He said another issue that deserves attention is how to sustain the water systems that have been put in place. Presently, Fufulso has an emergency treatment plant and the dam that provides water for the plant is running out of water. He said even though efforts are underway to use two other dams to sustain the project, if water runs out or the system breaks down, what will be the fate of the people?

The Director General of Ghana Health Service, Dr Elias Sory, congratulated the people of the Central Gonja District for shelving their traditional believes about guinea worm disease and accepting the health messages that eventually led to the eradication of the disease.

He cautioned them to take care of the water systems that have been provided for them and not to view them as the property of government but as their own property. He urged them to adopt a maintenance culture towards the systems and strive to maintain them rather than allowing them to break down for them to carry out repair works.

The Menace of Sachet Water Plastic Bags in GhanaThe EPA Has a Solution

UDS officials carting away seedlings

EPA Tamale Nursery

Tree seedlings in sachet water plastices

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is attempting to kill two birds with one stone. It is using sachet water plastic bags littered around the Tamale Metropolis which pose a menace to the environment to nurse tree seedlings for free distribution to schools, district assembles and individuals. The EPA thus hopes to clean up the environment and green the environment in one venture.

Briefing ‘The Advocate’ about the exercise, Mr. Abu Iddrissu, Northern Regional Acting Director of the EPA said the venture is also aimed at offering employment and income to unemployed women and the youth. The local innovation started with the watchman of the agency who was made to collect the sachet bags and taught how to perforate them to create vents for air to go in and water to come out so that microbial activities can go on. He also received technical training on how to put in soil and at what level soil should be put into the plastic bags before seedlings are put in.

When the work proved too much for the watchman, young school leavers were recruited and paid to collect sachet water plastics to bag the seedlings. Women were also hired to undertake the bagging of seedlings. So far, the metropolis has been ridded of over 10,000 plastic sachet bags which are now home to various tree seedlings.

Mango seeds littered around the Aboabo market were collected and nursed into seedlings which were then transplanted with technical advice from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) on how to water the seedlings and identify early pest infestations. The EPA also bought cassia and albezia seeds from the Forestry Department and the Integrated Tamale Fruit Company (ITFC) respectively which were also nursed into seedlings. Other seeds that were nursed into seedlings include neem, milk bush and cashew.

Recalling how the exercise was done, Mr. Iddrisu said “through technical training, we were made to know that the seeds should be parboiled before they are planted to hasten their germination. We carried out a floatation test to determine the good seeds which sink at the bottom of the water while the bad seeds float on top of the water. The good seeds were partially dried and planted. We were taught the angle of planting and the depth of planting. These are all techniques that our watchman and the other people recruited for the exercise learnt and implemented in the exercise.”

 Mr Iddirsu said the exercise forms part of the ‘Community and School Greening Programme’ of the EPA aimed at combating deforestation which is a serious problem in the Northern Region. “Given that most of the agency’s activities revolve around land restoration, land management, soil fertility restoration and degraded area management, providing seedlings to communities to encourage tree planting is one way of alleviating such problems”, he explained.

 Beneficiaries of the first batch of seedlings include the University for Development Studies (UDS) which was allocated 2000 seedlings for its greening project. Five districts out of the 20 districts in the region that have all been allocated seedlings have already taken a total of 2500 seedlings. Mr Iddrisu said the allocation of the seedlings to the district assemblies was in line with the EPA’s directive to the assemblies to establish assembly based woodlots to serve as an example to their communities which can be up scaled in future. However, a follow up on the proposal indicated that acquiring land for the establishment of assembly based woodlots as well as nurturing them into maturity was a problem to most of the assemblies. The seedlings were therefore distributed to schools to do avenue planting by the assemblies.

 The Tamale nursery is the only operational nursery in the ten regional EPA offices in the country and Mr. Iddrisu was optimistic that if the other offices of the EPA and other institutions concerned with environmental degradation undertook similar ventures, Ghana will come up strong in terms of afforestation and environmental sanitation.

 “Water sachet plastic waste has become a menace and the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions which are the most deforested parts of the country can make use of it. With time, the sachet water producers and the retailers can take up the challenge of supplying the empty sachets. If they know that there is value added to the waste, there can be proper disposal so that they are bought at a cheap rate for re-use”, Mr Iddrisu said.

 Sachet water plastic bags are not bio-degradable and there is no recycling plant to recycle them which makes their disposal a burden to the authorities concerned. Meanwhile, there are over 13 sachet water production companies in the Tamale Metropolis, which is a booming business due to the high demand for treated water.

 The Northern Region has been plagued with water borne diseases in the past, including guinea worm disease, which necessitated the establishment of the Guinea Worm Eradication Programme in the region as a result of inadequate supply of potable water. The Tamale Metropolis was not spared and suffered repeated bouts of water shortages, forcing inhabitants to look for alternative sources of potable water with no water running through their taps.

 Sachet water, as it is popularly called, became indispensable around this time and even with the improvement in the water supply system, demand for it has been on a steady increase. It is not uncommon for people in homes with pipe borne water to depend on sachet water for their drinking needs. Sachet water is affordable, costing only fifty Ghana Pesewas and the size of the sachets make them convenient to carry around in one’s bag so people leaving their homes can carry it to wherever they are going to ensure that they have access to clean drinking water. The rising popularity and usage of sachet water has however led to environmental pollution calling for more innovative ways to get rid of the plastic waste that it generates.

Tamale Water Source under Threat As Nawuni River Silts

Destroyed banks of Nawuni River

Part of destroyed river bank

The Nawuni River, the only source of drinking water for the Tamale Metropolis in the Northern Region of Ghana is under serious threat. Its depth has reduced drastically due to siltation which has undermined its water holding capacity.

The siltation of the river as a result of sand winning activities along its banks poses a great danger to the metropolis, threatening the river’s future capacity for supplying the required volume of water to the metropolis.

The river, which has now been rendered shallow, is unable to contain the volume of water that flows into it during the rainy season. This has resulted in repeated flooding along its banks during the rainy season.

During a visit to the river by a group of journalists from Tamale, it was confirmed that flooding along the banks of the river have increased both in intensity and regularity. This does not only lead to a loss of life and property in the area but also reduces the amount of water the river feeds into the Akosombo Dam, the country’s major supplier of electricity.

The Nawuni River, also known as the White Volta flows into the Black Volta at Yeji which feeds into the Akosombo Dam.

The visit, which was organized by Ghana Developing Communities Association (GDCA) offered journalists the chance to observe at first hand sand winning activities at the river banks by contractors for the construction of roads and buildings. This has led to a massive desecration of the banks leaving in its wake loose soils that are easily washed into the river.

Mr Hardi Tijani, Programme Manager of GDCA expressed the need to redress sand winning at the river banks in view of the dangers it poses to the river. Visits to areas of the region showed how uncontrolled sand winning had desecrated farmlands, and destroyed a lot of vegetation including economic and medicinal trees.

He said research conducted by the GDCA in 29 communities in the region indicates that 190 hectares of land have already been destroyed by sand and gravel winning activities which has directly affected 177 families. In addition, 68 percent of all pits that were never reclaimed were dug by contractors and individual tipper truck owner-drivers.

According to Mr. Tijani, “All these people usually hire labour from young people in communities close to the river where the sand is mined.  In that wise the communities that settle close to the White Volta also contribute to the sand winning activities because they get monetary rewards.”

Ironically, the contractors pay ridiculous royalties to the chiefs and people of the communities. They pay as paltry as GH¢1.00 and GH¢2.00 per tipper truck load of sand. Yet they sell the same quantity of sand for GH¢100.00, almost 10,000% more than the royalty they pay. Sometimes, the sand winners give the communities a raw deal by fetching more trips than they paid for, says Tijani. Moreover the chiefs do not determine the location for mining; it is left to the discretion of the sand winners.

Tijani added that, “The business of the sand winning is free entry free exit. Due to this the chiefs are not consulted on where the sand is mined the winners only give out revenue to the chief through his representative. It is the winner who always prospect for new sites for sand winning without the chief’s consent. If the chief is not serious no revenue will be paid him.”

Some of the communities that suffer from the inequities of the sand winners are: Datalon in the Tamale Metro and Ying, Kulidanaaali, Kodugziegu and Dipali in the Savelugu/Nanton district where gravel winning is practiced. Afayili, Golazoli, Yuni and Gbrimkabani all in the Tolon/Kumbungu.

Presently there are no any conscious efforts to check the menace of sand winning in the affected communities. The GDCA, which operates in the affected communities, has taken up the challenge with the support of the KASA project. KASA is a civil society support mechanism that aims to support evidence-based research and advocacy in the natural resource and environment sector. KASA is funding the GDCA to create awareness about the disadvantage and dangers of indiscriminate sand winning.

“As of now there is no physical effort from any person, be they individual or organizations to mitigate sand winning activities in the affected areas,” says Tijani. “The only step taken so far by KASA, EPA and others is awareness creation on the dangers of sand winning in the mass media so that offenders might change their attitudes and behaviours towards the natural environment.”

If this indiscriminate sand winning continuous unchecked, the people of Tamale Metropolis may be deprived of sufficient water supply. The projected population of the Metropolis is 350,000. Currently the Metropolis requires 10 million gallons of water daily. By 2015, according to the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), it will require about 15 million gallons (49,392 cubic meters) daily.

Environmentalsits fear that if sand winning at Nawuni continues at the rate at which it is going,with the attendant siltation and degradation, the GWCL will not be able to meet its target and the people of Tamale will suffer for it. It will also contribute to negative climatic conditions.