Saving School Children from Dog bites and Rabies: GES partners NGO and Pharma Company to intensify action
Children love dogs and cats and they are often the ones who interact closely with these pet animal. Unfortunately, children of school going age in Ghana are the ones who suffer most from the bites of these usually friendly animals and the resultant rabies disease. According to Dr. Emmanuel Pecku, an official of the Veterinary Services Department, about 40 percent of all rabies cases recorded in Ghana involve children below the age of 14 years (GNA Sept. 2022). An earlier six-year investigation by Dr. William Tasiame et.al. involving 7 regional hospitals (Central, Greater Accra, Western, Volta, Brong Ahafo, Upper East and Ashanti) revealed that, children within 0-15 years formed the highest number of victims of dog bites in these regions.
This surely, is a critical situation requiring fast and effective solution to save the lives of school going children. In response therefore, a unique partnership involving the Ghana Education Service School Health Education Program (GES/SHEP), the Veterinary Services Department and an NGO-Communication Initiatives for Change (CIC-Ghana) with sponsorship from a pharmaceutical company, Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) has been formed to deal with the situation.
The Greater Accra Region Basic Schools Rabies Prevention Education Campaign
In a campaign dubbed “Basic Schools Rabies Prevention Education in the Greater Accra Region,” this partnership aims at improving awareness and knowledge among school children, teachers, parents, and other stakeholders within the school environment in basic schools in the region, through the provision of basic information on the causes of rabies, signs and symptoms, mode of transmission, prevention, and proper treatment and care for dog bites and other exposures.
Commenting on the campaign which started in January this year, the Greater Accra Regional Director of the GES, Mr. Stephen Abamfo noted, “children love dogs as their pets and when it comes to creating a safe human –animal health environment and protecting the health of our children, educational programs such as this are immensely important.”
Led by field program operatives of CIC-Ghana, the basic schools’ rabies education campaign has so far trained a total of 291 District and School Health Education Coordinators, School Improvement Support Officers and Head teachers in 10 municipalities and districts of the Greater Accra Region in rabies prevention and effective treatment of dog bites. Communication and educational materials such as posters, rabies prevention and dog bites treatment guides and flip charts have been provided to the teachers to enable them integrate appropriate rabies prevention messages in their daily interactions with the school children.
Schools Health Teams and Rabies Sensitization Action Plans
As part of the training of trainers’ program, 100 action plans for 100 schools were developed by the School Health Teams to guide rabies prevention in all the schools. Implementation of these action plans will enable about 45,000 basic school children in the Greater Accra Region to be reached with messages on rabies prevention and the appropriate ways of treating dog bites.
Basic School Children Demonstrate their Knowledge of Rabies Prevention
Supervision and Monitoring activities undertaken by CIC and GES/SHEP Officials of school level activities in the schools participating in the rabies prevention education campaign reveal that children have mastered the information about rabies prevention presented though the implementation of the individual school’s action plans. Some of the children have demonstrated their understanding of the messages through illustrations of the callas to action.
Illustrations by Basic School Children showing their mastery of information on rabies prevention
Coverage of the rabies prevention education program 2024
The future looks really great for success in the GES/SHEP, CIC Ghana, VSD and BI A partnership effort to prevent dog bites and the resultant rabies infection among basic school children in Ghana. The partnership therefore plans to extend the coverage of the campaign in to the Volta and Bono regions of Ghana where cases of dog bites of children require priority attention to save the lives of the children. About 120,000 basic school children will be reached with rabies prevention information in the two regions when the extended campaign takes off.
Communication Initiatives for Change (CIC) Ghana is a Ghanaian non-governmental organization with expertise in social and behavior change, health and development communication.
CIC Ghana personalities behind this campaign include:
Emmanuel Fiagbey: Executive Director
Sylvester Segbaya: Director Programs
Phyllis Amartey: Director Finance
Vivian Abiwu: Program Coordinator
Mark Ossom: Program Officer
Emmanuel Apronti: Program Officer
