Cholera has killed at least 67 people in Ghana since June and infected more than 5,000 others in an outbreak that highlights the health and sanitation challenges facing one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies.
The Ghana Health Service (GHS) said the outbreak was centered on impoverished communities in urban areas in the south that lack adequate toilets, though there were also a few cases in rural parts of the north of the West African state.
The capital city of Accra is the epicenter of Ghana’s battle against cholera. At least 54 people who live within or near Accra have died from the disease, while at least 300 more are infected every day. Poor urban areas, many of which lack adequate plumbing, have struggled to combat the illness.
In a bid to slow the outbreak, local health officials are attempting to treat the infected while simultaneously addressing the infrastructure issues that allow cholera to rapidly spread, said Linda Van-Otoo, GHS director for Greater Accra.
“It is not only a health issue, there is a big element of environmental sanitation,” she said, adding that local authorities were attempting to tackle the root causes of the disease as well as treat the influx of patients.
But progress has been slow. Earlier this month, Van-Otoo described the scale of the cholera outbreak as “staggering.” Officials are growing increasingly alarmed by recent signs suggesting that the outbreak may be worse than initially thought.
Containing a growing outbreak
Particularly concerning are reports this week that treated and discharged cholera patients are relapsing, indicating that the treatment they received was not sufficient. If that is the case, these patients could have spread the infection to their family members when they initially returned home, officials warned.
Ghana is politically stable but is facing an array of fiscal problems, even though it has sustained economic growth of 8 percent for five years on the back of its exports of gold, cocoa and oil, making it one of Africa’s brightest economies.
President John Mahama’s government prides itself on its progress toward meeting United Nations goals for poverty reduction but many people still face a chronic lack of infrastructure and basic services.
Local news outlets are reporting of severe overcrowding in cholera isolation facilities, leaving health workers scrambling to set up more clinics. Public health officials also fear they might run out of medication to control the already dire situation facing the country.
Van-Otoo said contacting and tracing family members to administer the prophylaxis drug is also a challenge.
Cholera is an acute intestinal illness caused by a bacteria that can lead to rapid dehydration and death. Its victims are frequently infected through the ingestion of water and food contaminated by human feces.
While the disease no longer poses a threat to countries with minimum standards of hygiene, it remains a challenge to countries where access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation cannot be guaranteed. Almost every developing country faces cholera outbreaks or the threat of a cholera epidemic.
Ebola fears
Ghana has recorded no cases of the Ebola virus that since March has killed more than 1,400 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia as well as around five people in Nigeria, where two new cases were just confirmed. To date, Ghana has tested about 45 suspected Ebola cases, but all of them have come up negative.
Two recent “close calls,” however, left many questioning how Ghana’s health care system would handle an Ebola case, particularly after reports that doctors fled a hospital in Ghana after a patient with Ebola-like symptoms was admitted. Fearing they might contract the deadly virus, the doctors left the patient — who turned out not to have Ebola — to fend for himself, sparking criticism from authorities.
Meanwhile, others are concerned that the ongoing cholera epidemic could be masking the presence of Ebola, with some claiming that the virus is already in Ghana. Although official reports refute these claims, fears are running high and rumors of Ebola making its way into the country have put residents and government officials on high alert.