The Black Man's Grave?
Poku Adaa
POKU ADDA offers a perspective of the Yellow Fever epidemic now ravaging economically strangled Ghanaians and discusses the age-long crusade against Malaria Fever.Once upon a time, mosquitoes 'fought' alongside the black man of West Africa against the white colonisers. A century on and the creatures are, this time, fighting against their old 'allies'. Malaria and yellow fever are tearing West Africa apart in epidemic proportions and a Black Man's Grave is gradually emerging.
Recent reports indicate that a yellow fever epidemic has broken out in Ghana. It actually started from the Upper Region where towards the end of 1983, several cases were confirmed by hospital personnel. Despite preventive methods of aerial spraying and inoculation campaigns, it seems the outbreak could not be contained and now the whole country may be under the impact of the onslaught.
Yellow fever, like its twin sister malaria, is transmitted by mosquitoes, though in the case of yellow fever, it is the type known scientifically as Aedes Aegypti which carries the disease. An attack degenerates the tissues of the liver, kidneys and symptoms include chills, headaches, back pain, constipation and sometimes jaundice.
It is more deadly than malaria although medical evidence points out that once a patient has managed to recover from an initial attack, he subsequently builds immunity against further infection. Unlike malaria, yellow fever can now be dealt with successfully by vaccination and one only hopes that in Ghana, the government will be able to get hold of enough vaccines in time to halt the spread of the outbreak.
West Africa has a long history of yellow fever, most significantly the outbreak in 1951 which killed over 600 people in the Eastern part of Nigeria. The United Kingdom Medical Research Council has for many years carried out research into the disease in the Gambia river valley, while the Yaba Yellow Fever Research Institute in Nigeria has contributed enormously in research and in provision of vaccines.
In Ghana, the Japanese scientist, Noguchi, pioneered research into yellow fever as far back as the 1920's and has been rewarded by the Ghana Medical School after his death with a research institute connected with the disease bearing his name in memoriam.
Although international response to appeals for aid to combat the outbreak has been forthcoming - the EEC has donated $400,000 for vaccination pro- grammes - ultimately, it is how well the Ministry of Health utilises the aid that will determine the success of the programme. It is definitely a bad policy of any government to wait on her hunches till people begin to die before she picks up a bowl to go abegging.
Public health and preventive medic- ine are in tatters and health services have broken down in revolutionary Ghana. Having operated a 'piece of the action' for twenty four long months, the Chief Directors and the Secretary for Health and for Social Welfare should accept the challenge now from no big creatures than mosquitoes and defend the people. The poor masses of the people look up to the revolutionary government to protect their health.
Malaria fever is one other menacing disease which afflicts over 125 million peoples all over the developing world. The fight against malaria is centuries old and the World Health Organisation has fought relentlessly against it for many, many years. Global malaria eradication began in 1955 and has continued unabated ever since. In Africa alone, medical statistics show that over 1 million people, especially children, die every year from malaria fever.
The special difficulties posed by malaria control is the fact that the Anopheline mosquito which transmits malaria parasite has progressively become resistant to almost all known The only hope for mankind is the possible development or discovery of a vaccine as is the case with yellow fever.
However, scientific reports generally point to the fact that the road to a malaria vaccine is a long and tortuous one indeed. In 1978, a team of scien- tists at the University of Hawaii announced an experimental vaccine which appeared potent for monkeys in- jected with human malaria parasite. However widespread use of this find or authoritative confirmations are yet to be made.
Similar breakthroughs have been pouring out of several laboratories around the world over the past eight years. The Rockefeller University in New York, the New England Medical School in Boston and research institutes in Melbourne, have all devoted years of painstaking research work to investigate various aspects of immunity to malaria using diverse laboratory animals such as monkeys, squirrels, mice, rats, etc, etc, but the malaria parasite is as elusive as ever.
Apart from the possibility of a vaccine being discovered in the foreseeable future, other preventive methods are also the subject of scientific investigators. Scientists in Israel and France are close to isolating a strain of bacteria called Bacillus Thuringienis which are suspected to prove lethal to mosquito larvae. In other words, if the scientific investigations prove to be positive, then it would only need spraying of ponds infested with mosquito larvae with the bacteria and the job of control will have been done.
Trials of this bacterial control were reportedly carried out in Ivory Coast and Nigeria and the WHO and the World Bank were said to have been fully committed to the bacterial control investigations. Whenever this new weapon which holds a greater promise than a vaccine, is officially sanctioned. it is hoped that developing countries in the tropics will find it timely and beneficial.
Yet another means of curing malaria has been reported from China about six years ago and current information available evaluates it highly indeed. It is a medicine derived from the bitter plant, Wormwood, which is botanically called Artemesia apiaced. The medicine has been reported to be less toxic, very potent against the malaria parasite and able to act faster than other anti-malarials now available for oral or injection administration to patients.
While mankind wait for new technological breakthroughs to eradicate the scourge of malaria, it is imperative that countries like Ghana which suffer regularly from these fever infections heed the WHO's advice to integrate malaria and yellow fever control into national health programmes commit sufficient financial resources to them, for after all, a sick nation is a second class citizen.
