Three students from the Emory University School of Public Health, Atlanta, USA were in the country for a six-week internship to understand the Buruli ulcer situation and control in Ghana.
Three Emmory University Students Visited Ghana Buruli Ulcer Programe.
They studied the surveillance system in Ghana and how Buruli ulcer surveillance is organized. They also looked at the integrated control and surveillance of selected neglected tropical diseases and review the laboratory confirmation of Buruli ulcer in the country.
Most of their field work was carried out in the Ahafo Ano North district, although they visited other endemic districts.
Dr. Edwin Ampadu On The 10th BU Annual Meeting.
Dr. Edwin Ampadu, Ghana Buruli Ulcer Control Progarme Manager said on the whole, The 10th Annual meeting on Buruli Ulcer held in March 2008 was a special one.
It gave us all the platform to acesses ourselves of what we have acheave in the control and the management of the disease.
He said the meeting which is held every year provided the platform for all Buruli Ulcer endemic countries to tell the whole world what they were able to do and achieved in the year 2008 under review.
Dr. Edwin Ampadu, Ghana's Buruli Ulcer Control Progarme Manager says on the whole, The 10th Annual meeting on Buruli Ulcer held 29 March-2 April 2008 was special. It gave the platform to assess program performance acheavements in the control and the management of the disease. furthermore, the meeting served as a platform for Buruli Ulcer endemic countries to update the world of their control activities
The program manager admitted that the 10 years of Bururli Ulcer at the global level has come with a lot of challenges and success within a short time. Ghana has endoured 5 years of work with appreciable successes in terms of the resources mobilisation, capacity development local and external NGO participation.
There is the need to further improve in case management , case detection at the early stages, antibiotics treatment and prevention of disabilities associated with the diease.
Ghana was to developed another 5 year strategic plan for the control of the disease. With the success in the antibiotics treatment, there is hope that soon the disease patern was to improve for the better.
Ghana was to strengthend early case detection as the only effective control strategy to identify simple lesions for treatment. This will help demystify the disease in the country and therefore improved on treatment out come. We belief this can be acheived through extensive education and hygiene.
Ghana continues to take inspirations from sister countries on their intervention strategies.
Buruli ulcer can be treated and encourage all to report for effective treatment.
An international team of researchers finally isolated from the environment the organism that causes Buruli Ulcer.
WEDNESDAY, March 26 (Health Day News) -- An international team of researchers finally isolated from the environment the organism that causes devastating and disfiguring ulcers that primarily plague poorer populations in Africa, according to a new report.
The study into the cause of Buruli ulcers also supports the idea that the organism, Mycobacterium ulcerans, is transmitted to humans not from person-to-person contact but from "environmental aquatic niches" where possibly animals, insects or other aquatic items carry the pathogen. The study was published March 26 in the online, open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.
Buruli ulcer is a necrotizing disease that sometimes produces massive, disfiguring skin ulcers and can have a huge social impact on the affected. The disease occurs predominantly in impoverished, tropical, rural areas of Africa, where the incidence has been increasing, surpassing tuberculosis and leprosy (two other diseases caused by mycobacteria) in some regions.
Although it has long been believed that Mycobacterium ulcerans is an environmental pathogen transmitted to humans from its aquatic sources, the organism had never been previously isolated from its environmental source.
"Our findings support the concept that Mycobacterium ulcerans is a pathogen of humans with an aquatic environmental niche and will have positive consequences for the control of this neglected and socially important tropical disease," the study's authors wrote.
In a related commentary published by the PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, Tim Stinear of Monash University and Paul Johnson of Austin Hospital, both in Australia, wrote that the new study is a major achievement that "will serve as the definitive reference point" in scientists' search for the precise source and mode of transmission of Mycobacterium ulcerans. Neither Stinear nor Johnson was involved in the study.
Full article: http://www.plosntds.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pntd.0000178
Related article: http://www.plosntds.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pntd.0000216
nbucp-Ghana (July 2008)
nbucp-Ghana (March 2008)
nbucp-Ghana (March 2008)