Ghana, Cuba reaches $ 74 Million deal to combat malaria
Ghana and Cuba have signed a 74 million dollar Memorandum of
Understanding which seeks to reduce the incidence of malaria in the
country by 80 per cent in two years.
The MoU between the governments, represented by the Ministry of Health
and the Cuban Biological and Pharmaceutical Laboratories (LABIOFAM S.A.
), will enable Ghana to undertake a nation-wide area spraying to kill
fully developed mosquitoes, and more importantly, deal with the issue of
eliminating the stages of the parasites significantly.
The 74 million dollars is to be used to pay for the anti-malaria
chemicals (biolarvicides) that would be used for the project, the
technical personnel who will be deployed from Cuba and their Ghanaian
counterparts.
There has been an earlier undertaking between the health ministry and
LABIOFAM to help Ghana eliminate malaria, which started in 2008 in the
Greater Accra Region and was to move to the Ashanti and Brong-Ahafo Regions.
However, according to Joseph Yieleh Kyireh, the Health Minister, who
signed on behalf of the government, the new MoU is to enable the country
to extend the project to the whole country to achieve rapid results.
Briefing the media on Monday after the signing ceremony, which took
place at LABIOFAM, and witnessed by Vice-President John Mahama, Mr.
Yieleh Kyireh said unlike Ghana which initiated the project, Angola
which undertook a similar project later had chalked significant
successes because it carried out the project nation-wide.
He said if the project achieved its target of reducing malaria by 80 per
cent, Ghana's medical staff would be able to pay more attention to other
patients than the present scenario where most of the patients at the Out
Patient Departments (OPDs) were malaria patients.
It would also enable the country to attain the MGD target of reducing
infant mortality by two-thirds, and also technology transfer, as the
country had been chosen to be the hub for the production of larvicides
to supply ECOWAS countries.
Mr. Yieleh Kyireh said the proposed larvicides factory in Ghana will
provide for a combined sub-regional approach for malaria control with
LABIOFAM technology, aimed at total eradication of malaria.
Currently, he said funding for the project was being secured from
external sources.
Dr. Fraga Castro, Director-General of LABIOFAM, who appended his
signature on behalf of LABIOFAM S.A., was quoted to have said that he
looked forward to the full implementation of the MoU, asking for the
necessary support from the Ghana government to achieve maximum results.
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