More than 500 residents of Anyaa Sowutoum Constituency on Friday benefitted from a free Hepatitis B screening organised by the Member of Parliament for the area, Dr Dickson Adomako Kissi.
The two-day exercise gave participants the opportunity to receive pre-test and post-test counseling, where they were educated on the need for each individual to test and what to do after knowing their status.
The exercise, which formed part of the commemoration of the World Hepatitis Day (WHD) celebration, was aimed at creating awareness about the disease.
Observed every July 28, this year’s WHD is on the theme “one life, one liver”, and it seeks to promote firm commitment towards preventing and controlling viral hepatitis as part of a broader liver health and primary health care.
Addressing journalists after the exercise, Dr Kissi said the exercise was to enable the residents, especially men, who often did not check their health to know their status.
He said the “endemicity” of chronic Hepatitis B virus (HBV) in Ghana required that urgent steps are taken to save the population from recurring infection.
As part of the programme, the MP also donated some syringes to the municipal health directorate to aid them carry out the nationwide exercise.
Some of the beneficiaries, in an interview with the Ghanaian Times, expressed their gratitude to the MP for the exercise and said it had helped them to know their status
BY VIVIAN ARTHUR
