Residents in scabies-invested communities in the North East region have shared telling stories of sleep deprivations, acute and prolonged bodily pains since they were attacked by the contagious skin infection.

Scabies  spreads by direct, prolonged, skin-to-skin contact with an infested individual and cause debilitating itching, leading to scratching and expose to secondary bacterial infection. It can causes deformation or disability when left untreated for a long time. 

The Ghana Health Service confirmed the outbreak of the disease Thursday, September 19, after regional officials visited the community where the disease started from and has now escalated to deep villages  in the Gambaga - Nalerigu enclave such as Yunyorayili, Tamboku and around a dozen others. 

Dagbreboare, a small village located about 15km East of Gambaga  is where a confirmation of  a large scale infection of the disease came from  four months ago, but residents suspected a supernatural calamity  and failed to report to health centers instead the local chief sacrificed animals to pacify the gods of the land to heal his people. 

Now, the disease has spread to 16 communities, according to the East Mamprusi heath directorate, and has begun to affect the lives of the farm population in the area. There were reports Friday  the disease have started to attacked residents in the regional capital, Nalerigu. 

JoyNews traveled to the village  and met face to face with the patients, mostly  women and children, who looked tired with bloody open sores all over their bodies due to the excessive scratchings.

The community has very bad access road and the only means of reaching there is by motorbikes and tricycles. No running water but has a health facility that was constructed by the Americans' USAID. 

Pregnant Amina Shaibu, 42, told JoyNews she is worried everyone in her house has affected. "It will come small but multiplies as you you scratch on your skin", she described to JoyNews.

"Your body becomes heated at night and you are unable to sleep". 

She has visited the health facility, according to her, but the antibiotics given to her could not cure the infection.  She said, she has resorted to using local detergents and powder to fight the disease. 

"I'm surprised and scared", she says, "no animal bit me, nothing happened to me, but look at my body. I'm scared because all of us in this house are affected". 

There are over 50 people in Amina's house  - a small compound house built with only mud and almost without cement.  The rooms are very small almost less than half the size of a normal  classroom.  In one room, we counted 15 occupants, mostly mother and her children. 

50-year old Sakina Shaibu sleeps in this room with her children and grandchildren.  Among the occupants are her teenage nursing mother and her a three month old baby – both affected. 

The disease is not new to Sakina. She said she had seen and heard several outbreaks in other parts of the world but the elderly woman has no idea how she contracted the disease. 

" I feel a lot of dizziness especially at nights and scratch my body, all these children are not able to sleep; they would scratch their bodies till daybreak", she said. 

With her permission, the little baby was brought out naked from the overcrowded room with no ventilation for our cameras and we also witnessed the rash rashes developed around the genitals of other children. 

 

Cases were not reported - Midwife 

Speaking to JoyNews, the Midwife at the village health facility, Madam Modesta blamed the residents for the outbreak for failing to report the cases. 

"They were staying at homes thinking that we do have medicines for it [the disease], if the cases were to be reported we should have also reported to our directorate and see what they could have done ", she insists. 

"They didn't report to us. Only four or three people came here that we saw the disease and treated but later on they didn't come back".

Kayeye returnee spread the disease - Minister

At Gambaga, the East Mamprusi municipal capital, the municipal health director of the Ghana health service confirmed to JoyNews the outbreak of scabies but declined further questions of attack rate and other details of the outbreak. 

He said only the regional director in Tamale, Dr. John Ellezah, could address the matter in the press and asked us to direct our questions to the Tamale directorate. 

At Nalerigu, the Acting Regional Director, Dr. Abdulai Abubakari briefed the Regional Minister at the North East Regional Coordinating Council . 

Speaking to JoyNews after the briefing, Hon. Solomon Boar said the disease was spread by a young lady who had returned from Kayaye in one of the Urban cities. 

The Minister however assured that "there was no cause for alarm" and that efforts were already afoot to bring in supplies to tackle the outbreak. 

"Our investigation on the field has shown that, this is scabies", the minister also confirmed.  The suspicion is that, somebody who had gone to Kayaye came back with such a rashes on her body and escalated to this unacceptable level. " As I talk to you now, we are working assiduously to make sure that we nib in the bud within the shortest possible time"

"Already, sensitization is ongoing in this community to let the adhere to acceptable hygienic practises". 

The Minister also said the outbreak doesn't present a threat in the region and that people who are willing to business are free to come in.  

Scabies is a neglected tropical parasitic disease that is a major public health problem worldwide, and particularly in resource-poor regions. As WHO report, 2018 indicated scabies is a common public health problem that affects about 200 million people.

Overcrowding, poor hygiene, poor nutritional status, immigration, homelessness and sexual contact are the common predisposing factors for the infestation.

Studies in Sub-Saharan African countries indicated that scabies is highly contagious skin infection [4] and spreads by direct, prolonged, skin-to-skin contact with an infested individual and cause debilitating itching, leading to scratching and expose to secondary bacterial infection.

Scabies occurs worldwide with a prevalence between 0.3 and 46.0%. In Ghana, even though a 5.1% proportion of scabies was reported in a  review of skin diseases at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, the nationwide prevalence of scabies is unknown, according to the BMC Public Health data.