The World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Director for Africa, Dr Ebrahim Samba on Thursday reiterated that an accelerated economic growth and development was the best way to promote good health.
“Poverty and poor nutrition in developing countries make it difficult to counter the scourge of diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and related diseases,” he said on arrival at the airport for a three-day working visit.
Dr Samba, therefore, urged developing countries to step up their economic development and the developed nations to scale up their financial assistance to poor nations to enable them to deliver good health services to its people. He described Ghana’s health services as positive saying the authorities were aware of the health problems and were working hard to solve them.
The Regional Director said his visit would enable him to discuss Ghana’s current health situation and how best WHO could assist. On the AIDS menace, Dr samba said WHO was collaborating with pharmaceutical companies to produce affordable anti-retroviral drugs to help prolong the life span of patients as well as try to prevent mother-to-child infection.
He said WHO was also collaborating with government and health-related agencies to remove the stigma associated with AIDS and to let people know that it was a disease that could be curtailed.
Whilst in the country he would visit Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital as well as WHO sponsored projects including Bawjiase Orphanage in the Central Region. Dr Merville George, WHO Representative and Dr Kofi Ahmed, Chief Medical Officer, Ministry of Health met Dr Samba at the airport.
Source: GhanaWeb
