Dormaa awards clean communities

Wamfie (B/A), Dec. 23, GNA - Dormaa District Assembly in Brong Ahafo has held an award ceremony at Wamfie to climax activities marking the celebration of an environmental week aimed at helping to improve sanitation in the area.

Four area councils and five second-cycle institutions were honoured at the novelty ceremony for their environmental consciousness. The Dormaa-Akwamu area council received a certificate, four wheelbarrows, five cutlasses and two pairs of Wellington boots for emerging the cleanest area in the district.

Wamanafo Secondary-Technical School git a certificate, a cash prize and assorted books for winning a quiz contest organised for second-cycle institutions in the district.

Presenting the prizes, Mr. John Nana Owoo, Dormaa district deputy Coordinating Director, announced that records at the Dormaa Presbyterian Hospital showed that 70 percent of patients this year suffered from malaria-related illnesses.

He attributed this to the high incidence of mosquitoes and urged the people to take measures to minimize the breeding of the anopheles mosquito, which transmits the malaria parasite.

Mr. Owoo explained that government's huge financial expenses on the treatment of malaria and other filth-related diseases could be used to help improve the standard of living of Ghanaians if care was taken to curb the mounting incidence of those diseases.

A senior environmental health technologist at the Brong-Ahafo Regional Environmental Office, Mr. Ernest Ohene, expressed the institution's commitment to fighting malaria, typhoid fever, buruli ulcer and cholera through encouraging community compliance with basic hygiene.

He reminded communities that they would place untold pressure on the health insurance scheme if they should ignore basic preventive lifestyle just because the scheme is there to cater for their medical needs.

The Dormaa district environmental health officer Mr. Boateng Yeboah called for proper disposal of refuse, especially plastic containers. Mr. Yeboah also advised cooked-food sellers not to expose their wares to flies so as to offset the spread of contagious diseases. He announced that the environmental health unit with financial support from the district assembly, would, as from next year, establish a bi-monthly clean-up competition among communities in the district to implant the culture of cleanliness among them.