The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in collaboration with the Ghana Health Service, University of Ghana and the World Health Organization has organized a two-day workshop in KNUST on the theme: Setting an operational research agenda for skin Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD).
The workshop was slated for Tuesday and Wednesday 13th-14th of July at KNUST, Gardiner Conference ROOM.
The workshop was held to address gaps in relation to control, elimination and eradication of skin NTDs and to propose innovative strategies to enhance and sustain case detection in selected districts.
Present to grace the occasion were Dr. Benedict Quao from the Ghana Health Service and other KNUST Professors such as Dr Yaw Ampem Amoako and Prof Richard Odame Philips.
Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are a group of 20 World Health Organization (WHO) listed diseases are common in tropical and subtropical climates. These diseases are usually neglected by health systems in countries and poorly funded for research and control.
Over two billion people in the world are infected with these diseases and can result in lifelong deformities which lead to stigmatization if not reported mostly in poor rural communities where access to health facilities and clinical expertise is rarely existent.
According to the Leprosy Programs Manager at the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Benedict Quao, “a lot of progress has been made with regards to a neglected tropical disease as Ghana has been set free of guinea worm and trachoma which were huge problems of public health.”
He further emphasized on the importance of unity with different partners and the Ghana Health Service with respect to research in NTDs.
“This meeting is about setting a research agenda, operational research agenda. We have to move from the point where we have recognized research as vital and ensuring that we achieve our target. It would give us the needed answers to questions we have and help us optimize some of our interventions based on whatever we are seeing on the field. Coming together with different partners and collaborators to set a common research agenda means that we are now putting all our strengths together in one direction, the goal in which we have all chosen to go. That way we are able to get the answers more quickly and we are able to get better answers – stronger answers. That also means that one’s Ghana Health Service is involved from the start, we are more likely to be able to implement it on the field. Because Ghana Health Service carries a decentralized public health system in the country.”
Skin NTDs are very common. These are diseases that affect poor people in remote communities in Ghana. And in Ghana we have generally about six of them that we think are really problematic that is the buruli ulcer, yore, emphatic scleritis, scabies, leprosy, deep mycosis of fungi infection. These are all diseases that trouble our remote communities and the WHO 2030 road map that was set recently the use of a holistic approach in reaching set goals by 2030 and research is an important factor.
Professor Richard Odame Philips, a professor at the school of Medicine and Dentistry, KNUST also made emphasis on the need for extensive collaboration and integration to help our communities in the management of these NTDs.
“There has to be extensive collaboration, intensive integration, multi-disciplinary activities and there has to be the willingness to do this, because it takes a lot of hard work to bring such an agenda together. But there has to be a lot of cross-talking between health and other agencies that also are interlinked with the health ministry in other to come up with a really juicy agenda prioritized list that is likely to meet the needs of our communities.”
Over the years, the World Health Organization (WHO) has proposed an integrated approach to NTD management as funding keeps dwindling. WHO has therefore in recent times shown interest in encouraging the integration of various vertical control programs and activities as one of such prudent but efficient means of disease control.
By: Sandra Ofori Atta (FocusNewsRoom)
