Chief Biometrical Scientist of the Ghana Health Service, Edward Tei Hervie has revealed that every region in Ghana has at least two or more Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs).

The NTDs include; Elephantiasis, Glaucoma, River blindness, Leprosy, Guinea worm, Ulcer, Onchocerciasis, Bilharzia, Yaws, Human African trypanosomiasis, Sleeping sickness and many others.

According to Mr Hervie, these diseases are usually associated with the poor, marginalized and stigmatized in society. For that reason, he called on stakeholders in the health sectors in Ghana to put their resources together to help combat the disease.

“These are diseases that affect the poor, they lack a political voice, they are marginalized, stigmatized and they don’t seem to have any hope at all so we as a Health Sector, we as a people need to come together, pull our resources together and help combat these diseases,” he said.

Quoting the former Director-General of WHO, Dr Margret Chan, he said: “NTDs thrive under conditions of poverty and filth. They tend to cluster together in places where housing is substandard, drinking water is unsafe, sanitation is poor, access to health care is limited or non-existent, and insect vectors are constant household and agricultural companions”.

He added that ‘’all those affected people live in very poor endemic communities and our attention needs to be focused on them”.

Speaking in an interview on the AM Show, Mr Hervie stated that Ghana has made a significant progress in eliminating NTD’s such as Guinea worm and Trachoma in the country with the transmission of elephantiasis being stopped.

He said the advent of Covid-19 has slowed down a lot of activities and support for the programme as all attention has been shifted to Covid-19 forgetting that the NTD diseases still exist among us.

“Then the diseases still exist in our communities, people are suffering and we don’t want to wait till the whole country is overwhelmed with the diseases before we go out and support them, the time for action is now!” he said.

He further entreated the media to educate the masses by publicizing the NTDs on their various platforms.

He also called on stakeholders especially those in the corporate world to help in the combat of the disease by supporting with the needed resources in the education of the public.