Jun 28 2012
Ghana "will contribute about $1 million towards the prevention and control of endemic neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) in order to protect the gains made by the country in Guinea worm eradication and the elimination of trachoma," the country's health minister announced on Monday at the opening of a Regional Stakeholders' Consultative Meeting on NTDs, PANA/AfriqueJet reports. Health Minister Albin Bagbin "also called on African countries to support interventions to address NTDs and improve coordination among all stakeholders in implementing NTD programs," the news agency writes.
"The Minister noted that in recent times, there had been a phenomenal increase in advocacy and awareness on NTDs well as improved support for program implementation, but warned that these could only be sustained through country ownership of such campaigns," PANA adds. In an address read on his behalf, WHO Regional Director for Africa Luis Sambo "pledged WHO's commitment to strengthening platforms and creating an enabling environment for accelerating the implementation of NTD programs in the region and urged the meeting to come up with new insights on how to effectively scale up the implementation of NTD programs," the news agency notes (6/26).
 This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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