Abstract
This article retrospectively examines the factors which caused Guinea Worm Disease (Dracunculiasis) to spread to epidemic levels, so as to serve as the basis for formulating a national preventive agenda to reinforce the preventive measures which have been put in place to prevent the disease from re-emerging. The hybrid conceptual framework of disease diffusion and disease ecology was used. The mixed method research design was used to collect data from a total of 11 administrative districts. Primary data was obtained from a total of 860 respondents. To achieve a representative distribution of respondents, they were proportionately selected with respect to the populations of their respective districts. A key Informant interview was conducted. It was found that the major cause of the disease was attributed to poor access to potable water. Others were difficulty in getting ground water, populations preferring surface sources of drinking water, all year round contact with perennial surface sources of drinking water, and the “knee deep level” culture of fetching clean water from surface sources. It was concluded that cultural practices, environmental conditions, climatic influences, and real/imagined perceptions on the quality of water influenced the spread of the disease. It was recommended that government health institutions should make efforts at determining the factors that make populations vulnerable to diseases. The policy implication is that government will have to commit resources to provide people with the information and equipment they need to interact with their biophysical environment.Keywords: Drinking Water, Underground Water, Climate, Culture, Epidemic
Highlights
Ever since Guinea Worm Disease (GWD), scientifically known as Dracunculiasis, was reported in Ghana (Waddy, 1956) it was not until the early to mid-1980s that efforts were made to control it at different levels of intervention
When it was established that there was an outbreak of a guinea worm epidemic in the Northern Region of Ghana (Centres for Disease Control [CDC], 1989), attention was drawn to the possible factors in the region which made the region vulnerable to the disease
The social-agent host factor relationship which influenced and prevented the spread of the disease in the region was the culture of fetching water from ponds, the real/imagined perception of the taste of ground water which acted as a push factor to make people turn to surface sources of drinking water and the practice of digging outlying wells close to surface sources of drinking water
Summary
Ever since Guinea Worm Disease (GWD), scientifically known as Dracunculiasis, was reported in Ghana (Waddy, 1956) it was not until the early to mid-1980s that efforts were made to control it at different levels of intervention. During this period research showed that a set of factors was responsible for the spread of the disease in the Northern Region. When it was established that there was an outbreak of a guinea worm epidemic in the Northern Region of Ghana (Centres for Disease Control [CDC], 1989), attention was drawn to the possible factors in the region which made the region vulnerable to the disease. This article seeks to undertake a retrospective examination of the factors which caused the disease to spread to epidemic levels in the Northern Region in order to establish a national preventive agenda to reinforce and advance the permanent preventive measures which have been put in place to forestall the disease from re-emerging since its eradication in Ghana in 2015 (CDC, 2016).
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