A Public Health Specialist at the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH) Alhaji Mustapha Tahiru counseled the public to make use of insecticide-treated mosquito nets, screens on windows and doors to prevent mosquito bites and protect against yellow fever.
He explained yellow fever is a serious disease caught by being bitten by a mosquito infected by a virus. It can cause severe illness, with bleeding from the organs of the body and even death. It is called yellow fever because sometimes it makes the skin turn yellow (jaundice).
The disease he indicates if not detected early can be fatal. Initial symptoms he mentioned include fever, chills, body aches, back pain. The rest are nausea, vomiting, severe headache, fatigue, weakness. Alhaji Tahiru was speaking in an interview with Zaa news.
Alhaji Tahiru said although, there is no human-to-human transmission of the virus, however, the disease is completely vaccine-preventable with a single shot providing immunity for a lifetime, but sadly many people are not vaccinated against the killer disease.
He noted there is need for Ghanaians to keep their environments clean and free of stagnant water to discourage the breeding of mosquitoes.
‘’yellow fever is highly infectious and if not detected early it can be fatal, so I will advise the general public to vaccinate against the disease and also keep clean environments to discourage the breeding of mosquito’’, he acknowledged.
Results from World Data Atlas revealed that in 2020, yellow fever cases for Ghana was 0. Though Ghana yellow fever cases fluctuated substantially in recent years, it tended to decrease through 2001 – 2020 period ending at 0 in 2020.
Meanwhile the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has issued a statement announcing that there is a suspected case of yellow fever recorded in the Savannah region. Eight persons are said to have died from the suspected yellow fever.
According to the GHS, samples taken to test for other viral infections such as Ebola, Lassa fever, Marbug and Zika all tested negative.
It said the affected persons were nomads from slated communities in the West and North Gonja. The GHS has therefore admonished the general public to avoid mosquito bites, or take the vaccination against yellow fever if they have not taken it.
By: Lilian D. Walter/zaanews.com/Ghana