Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Osei Kyei-Mensah Bonsu, is calling for critical attention to cerebrospinal meningitis, as the country battles the coronavirus pandemic.

He describes CSM as the greatest health threat to Ghana because of the fatality associated with it, and not Covid-19.

"In Ghana today, the greatest threat is not the coronavirus because in just one region, the Upper West Region, in just two months CSM has re-appeared and taken 33 lives. So in that small enclave - the Wa enclave, not the entirety of the Upper West enclave- just the Wa enclave, 33 lives have been lost over the past eight weeks all thanks to CSM. Yet, because this nation is engulfed in the aura of the coronavirus, nobody is talking about it,"  the Majority Leader in Parliament lamented.

CSM is an acute inflammation of three membranes covering both the brain and the spinal cord.

Its emergence in the Upper West Region has been devastating, having killed 33 people in the last two months.

However, the issue appears to have been pushed to the background due to attention on Covid-19.

"Yesterday when the MP for Wa Central, [Dr. Rashid Pelpuo] approached me with this news, I said to him to put down something...that the nation would be made aware that in spite of this fight against coronavirus, there is a greater danger and we must equally pay attention to that because that is a greater killer," the Leader of Government Business said.

Mr. Kyei-Mensah Bonsu says Parliament is already taking steps on the matter, with MP for Wa Central, Dr. Rashid Pelpuo, expected to present a paper on the situation to the House.

He says Ghanaians should be concerned about CSM and its fatalities.

"We do know the circumstances surrounding the CSM, unlike the coronavirus which is a stranger to us. So let's again attend to that and I believe we will be able to conquer that in the shortest possible time."