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Week of March 12: Every day we go through hospital and clinic registers to see if we can find any case of Acute Flaccid Paralysis which might lead us to an overlooked victim of polio.  It is interesting to see how many snake bites we encounter. Usually the patients are grown men working in the fields, who accidentally walk into a snake in the tall grass.

Please click on       picture to enlarge it.

Too often, however,we find a child, like this little boy, who reached into a hole during play only to encounter an unfriendly snake that was not interested in playing with children. When such unfortunates are brought to a clinic or hospital vomiting blood,all swollen and edematous, they are given a mixed anti-venom, since the type of snake is unknown and the medical personnel just hope for the best.  This young man, fortunately, is a survivor. He assured me he wasn't ever going to stick his hand into holes in the ground again.

Malaria continues to be the overwhelming major health problem and the hospitals are filled with feverish little children, often recovering from convulsions -- like this little boy whose enlarged spleen and liver indicate that his body has been fighting this disease almost from birth.. Unfortunately, one of our STOP Team members, a young lady doctor who came with me from the US (there are three of us working in different regions of Ghana) became another victim of malaria last week and had to retreat to the capital of Ghana for medical treatment and recovery.

I do enjoy visiting and working in the villages. Richard, my counterpart, who is the Surveillance officer stationed in the Brong Ahafo Region takes advantage of the prices of goods in these impoverished villages and here is purchasing a sack of charcoal. Making charcoal is and arduous process, involving cutting down hardwood trees, digging large holes and then setting the wood on fire and, at a critical point, covering it with dirt to smolder and turn to charcoal.

If you enlarge the last picture you might be able to read the posters on the houses, warning them of AIDS and admonishing them to use condoms. This is similar to the posters advising them to use mosquito nets. Only where do they get money for condoms and mosquito nets?

We continue to teach with flip charts, or with my laptop, depending on the size of the group and if electricity is available. Our priority, of course, is the individual clinician who is usually too busy with an overwhelming load of patients. Here we merely brief and update him / her on the status of the Polio Eradication Initiative hoping to cultivate sensitization for the need to report any AFP or case suspicious of polio. The good thing is that recently I am traveling with both the Regional Surveillance Officer, as well as the Disease Control Officer of the district we're in and they are being oriented to follow up on our contacts. Training others to do the surveillance is our major thrust.

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