Cape Coast: Mr. Ekow Panyin Eduamoah, the Central Regional Minister, has appealed to churches and mosques to make cleanliness and behavioural change an integral part of their sermons to support the fight against cholera. He emphasized that the fight against the disease could not be won if education and sensitisation were left to health officials and the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) alone.
According to Ghana News Agency, the Minister stated, "We want the pastors and imams to take a prominent role in the education and all other institutions must come on board. That is the only way we can get the information to the people." Mr. Eduamoah made this call during his visit to various communities in Cape Coast to assess the sanitation situation amidst the cholera outbreak in parts of the region.
The Minister's tour included a stop at the Cape Coast Metro Hospital, where he visited cholera patients at the treatment centre. His visit revealed grave sanitation issues in many of the communities. In highly populated areas like Brofoyedur and Amanful, open defecation and heavily choked gutters were rampant. Alarmingly, many households had connected their toilet facilities directly to open gutters filled with silt and plastic waste.
The seashore had become a dumping ground and a site for open defecation, with communities overwhelmed by filth, particularly plastic waste. This dire situation is worsened by a severe water shortage. Mr. Eduamoah and his team witnessed individuals cooking and selling food near open gutters filled with excrement, a situation that left him shocked.
Mr. Eduamoah expressed deep concern about the economic repercussions of the outbreak and its potential impact on the government's development agenda. He noted that the root of the issue was behavioural and stressed the need for enhanced education and sensitisation. In response, he instructed the Metropolitan Assembly to deploy tankers to supply water to residents, aiming to help combat the cholera outbreak.
