Sodom and Gomorra to receive attention

Professor Kweku Danso-Boafo, Minister of Health, has said urgent steps are being taken to address the appalling health conditions at 'Sodom and Gomorra', in the Ashiedu Keteke constituency of Accra.

The minister was visibly shocked on coming face to face with the realities there when he joined the health team to administer polio vaccine on children at the settlement. Describing conditions there as "very bad" he said: "one is not expected to live in such an environment at this present time,"

Sodom and Gomorra, named after the two biblical cities, sprang up as a sordid ghetto at the Agbogbloshie market with makeshift structures as sleeping places. Without any drainage, the area became the breeding grounds for mosquitoes and according to health records it has the highest incidence of malaria, typhoid, anaemia, malnutrition and cholera cases in the Greater Accra Region.

Prof Danso-Boafo was with the Ashiedu Keteke health team undertaking a house-to house vaccination at the start of the three-day second round of the national immunisation day exercise, which aims at reaching over four million under-five children.

The World Health Organisation is leading efforts in the final onslaught against the highly infectious polio, a crippling disease, which has been targeted for eradication world-wide by the year 2005.

Seventeen West and Central African countries are also carrying out a similar house-to-house exercise in response to the global initiative against polio.