Ghana
In honor of World Immunization Week, April 21 to 28, and the GAVI Alliance’s launch of two vaccines in Ghana on April 26, here is an interview with Dr. Mame Yaa Nyarko, pediatrician and head of Clinical Services at the Princess Marie Louise Children’s Hospital in Accra. It was conducted by Doune Porter, GAVI Alliance earlier this year.
Pediatrician Dr. Mame Yaa Nyarko examines a child recovering from severe diarrhea in one of her wards at the Princess Marie Louise Children’s Hospital in Accra. Photo Credit: GAVI/Doune Porter/2012
Dr. Mame Yaa Nyarko maintains a smile as she works. Examining the children in her charge, she takes a moment to comfort them. But the Head of Clinical Services at the Princess Marie Louise Children’s Hospital in Accra knows that every moment is precious. She has a lot of patients.
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Interview with Dr. K.O. Antwi-Agyei, Ghana’s Expanded Program on Immunization Manager by Doune Porter, GAVI Alliance.
Dr. K.O. Antwi-Agyei, manager of Ghana’s Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) wants no part of “business as usual.” He and his team are working on an unprecedented joint GAVI-supported introduction of pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines, which will protect children against the leading causes of pneumonia and severe diarrhea. The launch will take place in Accra on April 26, 2012.
“Pneumonia and diarrhea are killing our children,” says Dr. Antwi-Agyei. “Yes, it is challenging to introduce two vaccines at the same time, but the diseases are not waiting for us, so that when we are finished dealing with one, only then will the other show itself. In the meantime, people are dying. We need to do business unusually.
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Last week in DC, I had the opportunity to sit down with Mercy Ahun from the GAVI Alliance Secretariat. When I first met her two years ago, she was GAVI’s Director of Program Delivery, but recently she was named GAVI’s Special Representative to GAVI-Eligible Countries. In this role, she serves as a bridge between GAVI, countries receiving GAVI support, and donors, and she works to develop customized approaches that deliver even more effective results on the ground.
ONE is really excited that in less than 1 month, Ghana will become the first country to roll out pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines at the same time. Especially as a Ghanaian, what does this milestone mean to you?
It’s been exciting! I remember the first time I was talking to Ghana’s EPI (Extended Program on Immunization) Manager about this, and I said, are you sure you want to do this? And he said yes—we are close to achieving MDG 5 (reducing child deaths); doing this allows us to hit two birds with one stone. And when I started looking at their vaccine programs, and saw that they already had achieved high coverage levels of other vaccines, I said yes, I think the system is strong enough to do this. And I think it is important to document the process in Ghana so then others can learn from it.
I go to Ghana about six times in a year, and we have an excellent relationship not just with the EPI Manager but with other groups in the Ministry of Health and with the partners. When we’re in Ghana, you can catch the excitement. I remember that one person said to me, “It feels like the whole world is looking at us”, and to that I just think: wow.
What does a country like Ghana need to do to prepare itself for a vaccines roll out?
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Just ONE Reason is a weekly look at just ONE of the thousands of reasons leaders in Washington should make smart decisions on development policies.
Afadjtator, Ghana. Photo credit: Morgana Wingard
The United Nations announced Tuesday that “the world’s nations achieved a UN goal of cutting in half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water, five years ahead of the 2015 target.”
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Jennifer Wynn from ONE’s global policy team reports on successful MCC-funded projects in Ghana.
Ghana successfully completed its five-year, $547 million compact with the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) last month. The grant focused on reducing poverty by helping to modernize Ghana’s agricultural sector and improve transportation and rural services.
ONE visited Ghana in January to witness firsthand how the US-Ghana partnership has helped -– and is continuing to help –- provide opportunities for Ghanaians to build sustainable livelihoods. Over the past five years, MCC’s programs in Ghana have focused on training farmers, increasing production and productivity of high-value cash and food staple crops, enhancing the competitiveness of Ghana’s agricultural exports, improving rural transportation to assist farmers, increasing access to financial services, bringing schools clean water, and providing electricity to rural farmers. Already the MCC in Ghana can count among its results:
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This piece is cross-posted from Morgana Wingard’s Wanderlust blog.
In Ghana, 8 out of 10 children under the age of five and 3 out of 10 adult women suffer from some form of malnutrition, including stunting, wasting, and/or deficiencies in iron, iodine, and vitamin A. I recently visited Nyankpala Community Management of Acute Malnutrition in Tamale, Ghana, a Health Service (GHS) project that integrates and promotes community-based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) services and supplies.
With funds from USAID and UNICEF, GHS has established support units for acute malnutrition at the national, regional and district levels. Between 2008 and 2011, Ghana has increased CMAM from two learning sites in two districts to 403 sites in 31 districts. In total, 2,040 health care providers have been trained on CMAM services and 5,973 children with severe acute malnutrition have been admitted to the program. Of these children 71 percent were cured, 2 percent died, and 1 percent did not recover; 26 percent failed to follow up.
Mac-Jordan Degadjor is a Ghanaian social media entrepreneur and rising star among global tech bloggers. The 26-year-old recently spoke about the positive effects of social media at the TEDxYouthInspire conference in Ghana’s capital city of Accra and was spotlighted in the Christian Science Monitor’s “Thirty Ideas from People Under 30.” We asked Mac-Jordan to explain why mobile tech advancements are important for Ghana’s economic and social growth.
Why is Ghana ready for a mobile technology boom? Are investors looking to Ghana as a market ready to advance with mobile?
Anytime I’m asked if Ghana is ready for the mobile technology boom, my answer is always YES. In Ghana, there are two major organizations providing locals with the business and technology skills they need to leverage ideas into successful mobile web companies: Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology and Mobile Web Ghana.
New opportunities are showing up that make it possible for low-income economies to leapfrog other countries by adopting technologies that are suitable to their specific circumstances. I’m happy to say that Ghana is taking that bold step in adopting new mobile technologies. Take a critical look at the continent: Africa has more than 110 million Internet users, a number that is poised to grow by 2400 percent in this decade alone.
What about Ghana’s market makes it ready for mobile phone technology? How are smartphones being introduced into the market? Can bandwidth improvements keep up with the technology?
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